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THE 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK 
 
 UNIVERSITIES 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., 
 
 OF THE ORATORY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GEEEN, AND LONGMANS. 
 
 1856. 
 
 Li 
 
"I*/. 
 
 °( 
 
 A.iSobzA- 
 
 JOHN P. FOWLER, PRINTER, 
 
 3 CROW STREET, DAME STREET, 
 
 DCBLIN. 
 
 '1? J,V 
 
 p— - 
 
JAMES R. HOPE SCOTT, ESQ., Q.C., 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 A NAME EVEE TO BE HAD IN HONOUR, 
 
 WHEN UNIVERSITIES ARE MENTIONED, 
 
 FOR THE ZEAL OF HIS EARLY RESEARCHES, 
 
 AND THE MUNIFICENCE OF HIS LATER DEEDS, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 A TARDT AND UNWORTHY MEMORIAL 
 
 OF THE LOVE AND ADMIRATION 
 
 OF MANY EVENTFUL YEARS. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 This Volume consists of Papers which appeared 
 in the columns of the Catholic University Ga- 
 zette, a publication which has been the organ of 
 the new Irish University, and which will be 
 found to contain more information on the sub- 
 ject, to which it is devoted, than any other work 
 of the kind, and is full of interesting and in- 
 structive details. 
 
 Though the Author has put his name in the 
 title-page, he has thought it best to retain both 
 the profession of incognito and the conversational 
 tone in which he originally wrote; for the ob- 
 vious reason, that, to have dropped either would 
 have been to recast his volume. For such a task 
 he could not promise himself leisure; and, had 
 
VI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 he effected it, he might after all have made him- 
 self more exact and solid only at the price of 
 becoming less readable, at least in the judgment 
 of a day, which keenly appreciates the proverb, 
 that " a great book is a great evil". In saying 
 this, however, he has no intention of implying 
 that he has spared thought or pains in his com- 
 position, or of apologizing for its matter. 
 
 Dublin, 
 October 28, 1856. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. Introductory p. 1 
 
 II. What is a University ? 9 
 
 III. Site of a University 26 
 
 IV. University Life : Athens 49 
 V. Free Trade in Knowledge : The Sophists 70 
 
 VI. Discipline and Influence 90 
 
 VII. Influence : Athenian Schools 116 
 A7m. Discipline: Macedonian and Roman 
 
 Schools 136 
 EX. Downfall and Refuge of Ancient Civili- 
 zation. The Lombards -"- 158 
 X. The Tradition of Civilization: The Isles 
 
 of the North 1 74 
 XI. A Characteristic of the Popes : St. Gre- 
 gory the Great 196 
 XII. Moral of that Characteristic of the Popes: 
 
 Pius the Ninth - 215 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 XIII. Schools of Charlemagne : Paris p. 226 
 
 XIV. Supply and Demand : The Schoolmen 246 
 XV. Professors and Tutors 269 
 
 XVI. The Strength and Weakness of Universi- 
 ties : Abelard - 289 
 XVII. The Ancient University of Dublin 306 
 XVIII. Colleges the Corrective of Universities : 
 
 Oxford 321 
 
 XIX. Abuses of the Colleges : Oxford 344 
 XX. Universities and Seminaries : 1' Ecole des 
 
 Hautes Etudes 361 
 
UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 I have it in purpose to commit to paper, time 
 after time, various thoughts of my own, season- 
 able, as I conceive, when a Catholic University is 
 under formation, and apposite in a publication,* 
 which is to be the record and organ of its pro- 
 ceedings. An anonymous person, indeed, like 
 myself, can claim no authority for anything he 
 advances ; nor have I any intention of introdu- 
 cing or sheltering myself under the sanction of 
 the Institution which I wish to serve. My 
 remarks will stand amid weightier matters like 
 the non-official portion of certain government 
 journals in foreign parts ; and I trust they will 
 have their use, though they are but individual 
 
 * The Catholic University Gazette. 
 
 1 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 in their origin, and meagre in their execution. 
 When I say anything to the purpose, the gain is 
 the University's ; when I am mistaken or unsuc- 
 cessful, the failure is my own. 
 
 The Prelates of the Irish Church are at pre- 
 sent engaged in an anxious and momentous task, 
 which has the inconvenience of being strange 
 to us, if it be not novel. A University is not 
 founded every day; and seldom indeed has it 
 been founded under the peculiar circumstances 
 which will now attend its introduction into Ca- 
 tholic Ireland. . Generally speaking, it has grown 
 up out of schools, or colleges, or seminaries, or 
 monastic bodies, which had already lasted for 
 centuries ; and, different as it is from them all, 
 has been little else than their natural result and 
 completion. While then it has been expanding 
 into its peculiar and perfect form, it has at the 
 same time been by anticipation educating sub- 
 jects for its service, and has been creating and 
 carrying along with it the national sympathy. 
 Here, however, as the world is not slow to 
 object, this great institution is to take its place 
 among us without antecedent or precedent, whe- 
 ther to recommend or to explain it. It receives, 
 we are told, neither illustration nor augury from 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 6 
 
 the history of the past, and must needs he 
 brought into being as well as into shape. It has 
 to force its way abruptly into an existing state 
 of things, which has never duly felt the absence 
 of it; and it finds its most formidable obstacles, 
 not in anything inherent in the undertaking 
 itself, but in the circumambient atmosphere of 
 misapprehension and prejudice into which it is 
 received. Necessary as it may be, it has to be 
 carried into effect in the presence of a reluctant 
 or perplexed public opinion, and that, without 
 any counterbalancing assistance whatever, as has 
 commonly been the case with Universities, from 
 royal favour or civil sanction. 
 
 This is what many a man will urge, who is 
 favourable to the project itself, viewed apart 
 from the difficulties of the time; nor can the 
 force of such representations be denied. On the 
 other hand, such difficulties must be taken for 
 what they are really worth ; they exist, not so 
 much in adverse facts, as in the opinion of the 
 world about the facts. It would be absurd to 
 deny, that grave and good men, zealous for reli- 
 gion, and experienced in the state of the country, 
 have had serious misgivings on the subject, and 
 have thought the vision of a Catholic University 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 too noble, too desirable, to be possible. Still, 
 making every admission on this score which can 
 be required of me, I think it is true, after all, 
 that our main adversary is to be found, not in 
 the unfavourable judgments of particular persons, 
 though such there are, but in the vague and dif- 
 fusive influence of what is called Public Opinion. 
 I am not so irrational as to despise Public 
 Opinion ; I have no thought of making light of 
 a tribunal established in the conditions and ne- 
 cessities of human nature. It has its place in 
 the very constitution of society; it ever has 
 been, it ever will be, whether in the common- 
 wealth of nations, or in the humble and secluded 
 village. But wholesome as it is as a principle, 
 it has, in common with all things human, great 
 imperfections, and makes many mistakes. Too 
 often it is nothing else than what the whole 
 world opines, and no one in particular. Your 
 neighbour assures you that every one is of one 
 way of thinking ; that there is but one opinion 
 on the subject; and while he claims not to be 
 answerable for it, he does not hesitate to pro- 
 pound and spread it. In such cases, every one 
 is appealing to every one else ; and the consti- 
 tuent members of a community one by one 
 
INTRODUCTORY. ,") 
 
 think it their duty to defer and succumb to the 
 voice of that same community as a whole. 
 
 It would be extravagant to maintain that this 
 is the adequate resolution of the feelings which 
 have for some time prevailed among us as to the 
 establishment of our University ; but, so far as it 
 is correct, this follows, viz. : that the despondency 
 with which the project is regarded by so many 
 persons, is the offspring, not of their judgment, 
 but mainly (I say it, as will be seen directly, 
 without any disrespect) of their imagination. 
 Public Opinion especially acts upon the imagina- 
 tion ; it does not convince, but it impresses ; it 
 has the force of authority, rather than of reason ; 
 and concurrence in it is, not an intelligent de- 
 cision, but a submission or belief. This circum- 
 stance at once suggests to us how we are to 
 proceed in the case under consideration. Argu- 
 ments are the fit weapons with which to assail 
 an erroneous judgment, but statements and ac- 
 tions must be brought to bear upon a false 
 imagination. The mind in that case has been 
 misled by representations ; it must be set right 
 by representations. It demands of us, not rea- 
 soning, but discussion. In works on Logic, we 
 meet with a sophistical argument, the object of 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 which is to prove that motion is impossible ; and 
 it is not uncommon, before scientifically handling 
 it, to suggest a practical refutation of it ; — Sol- 
 vitur ambulando. Such is the sort of reply 
 which I think it may be useful just now to 
 make to public opinion, which is so indisposed 
 to allow that a Catholic University of the 
 English tongue can be set in motion. I will 
 neither directly prove that it is possible, nor 
 answer the allegations in behalf of its impossibi- 
 lity ; I shall attempt a humbler, but perhaps a 
 not less efficacious service, in employing myself 
 to the best of my ability, and according to the 
 patience of the reader, in setting forth what a 
 University is. I will leave the controversy to 
 others ; I will confine myself to description and 
 statement, concerning the nature, the character, 
 the work, the peculiarities of a University, the 
 aims with which it is established, the wants it 
 may supply, the methods it adopts, what it 
 involves and requires, what its relations to 
 other institutions, and what has been its history. 
 I am sanguine that my labour will not be thrown 
 away, though it aims at nothing very learned, 
 nothing very systematic ; though it should wan- 
 der from one subject to another, as each happens 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 to arise, and gives no promise whatever of ter- 
 minating in the production of a book. 
 
 And in attempting as much as this, while I 
 hope I shall gain instruction from criticisms of 
 whatever sort, I do not mean to be put out by 
 them, whether they come from those who know 
 more, or those who know less than myself; — from 
 those who take exacter, broader, more erudite, 
 more sagacious, more philosophical views than 
 my own ; or those who have yet to attain such 
 measure of truth and of judgment as I may 
 myself claim. I must not be disturbed at the 
 animadversions of those who have a right to feel 
 superior to me, nor at the complaints of others 
 who think I do not enter into or satisfy their 
 difficulties. If I am charged with being shallow 
 on the one part, or off-hand on the other, if I 
 myself feel that fastidiousness at my own at- 
 tempts, which grows upon an author as he 
 multiplies his compositions, I shall console my- 
 self with the reflection, that life is not long 
 enough to do more than our best, whatever that 
 may be; that they who are ever taking aim, 
 make no hits; that they who never venture, 
 never gain ; that to be ever safe, is to be ever 
 feeble ; and that to do some substantial good, 
 
8 INTRODUCTOBY. 
 
 the compensation for much incidental imperfec- 
 tion. 
 
 With thoughts like these, which, such as 
 they are, have been the companions and the 
 food of my life hitherto, I address myself to my 
 undertaking. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY t 
 
 If I were asked to describe as briefly and 
 . popularly as I could, what a University was, I 
 should draw my answer from its ancient designa- 
 tion of a Studium Generate, or " School of 
 Universal Learning". This description implies 
 the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one 
 spot; — from all parts; else, how will you find 
 professors and students for every department of 
 . knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can 
 there be any school at all? Accordingly, in 
 its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of 
 knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers 
 and learners from every quarter. Many things 
 are * requisite to complete and satisfy the idea 
 embodied in this description ; but such a Univer- 
 sity seems to be in its essence, a J)lace for the 
 / communication and circulation of thought, by 
 I means of personal intercourse, through a wide 
 ' extent of country. 
 
10 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 There is nothing far-fetched or unreasonable 
 in the idea thus presented to us ; and if this be 
 a University, then a University does but con- 
 template a necessity of our nature, and is but 
 one' specimen in a particular department, out of 
 many which might be' adduced in others, of a 
 provision for that necessity. Mutual education, 
 in a large sense of the word, is one of the great 
 and incessant occupations of human society, car- 
 ried on partly with set purpose, and partly not. 
 One" generation forms another ; and the existing 
 generation is ever acting and reacting upon itself 
 in the persons of its individual members. Now, 
 in this process, books, I need scarcely say, that 
 is, the littera scripta, are one special instrument. 
 It is true; and emphatically so in this age. 
 Considering the 'prodigious powers of the press, 
 and how they are developed at this time in the 
 never-intermitting issue of periodicals, 'tracts, 
 pamphlets, works in series, and light'literature, 
 we must allow there never was a time which 
 promised fairer for dispensing with every other 
 means of information and instruction. What 
 can we want more, you will say, for the intellec- 
 tual education of the whole man, and for every 
 man, than so exuberant and diversified and 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 11 
 
 persevering a promulgation of all kinds of know- 
 ledge? Why, you will ask, need we go up to 
 knowledge, when knowledge comes down to 
 us? The Sybil wrote her prophecies upon the 
 leaves of the forest, and wasted them ; hut here 
 such careless profusion might be prudently in- 
 dulged, for it can be afforded without loss, in con- 
 sequence of the almost fabulous fecundity of the 
 instrument which these latter ages have invented. 
 We have sermons in stones, and books in the 
 running brooks ; works larger and more compre- 
 hensive than those which have gained ancients 
 an immortality, issue forth every morning, and 
 are projected onwards to the ends of the earth at 
 the rate of hundreds of miles a day. Our seats 
 are strewed, our pavements are powdered, with 
 swarms of little tracts ; and the very bricks of our 
 city walls preach wisdom, by largely informing 
 us where we can at once cheaply purchase it. 
 
 I allow all this, and much more; such cer- 
 tainly is the popular education, and its effects 
 are remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in 
 this age, when men are really serious about 
 getting what, in the language of trade, is called 
 "a good article", when they aim at something 
 precise, something refined, something really lu- 
 
12 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 urinous, something really large, something choice, 
 they go to another market; they avail them- 
 selves, in some shape or other, of the rival me- 
 thod, the ancient method, of oral instruction, of 
 present communication between man and man, 
 of teachers instead of teaching, of the personal 
 influence of a master, and the humble initiation 
 of a' disciple, and, in consequence, of great cen- 
 tres of pilgrimage and throng, which such a 
 method of education necessarily involves. This, 
 I think, will be found good in all those depart- 
 ments or aspects of society, which possess an 
 interest sufficient to bind men together, or to 
 constitute what is called "a world". It holds in 
 the political world, and in the high world, and 
 in the religious world ; and it holds also in the 
 literary and scientific world. 
 
 If the actions of men may be taken as any 
 test of their convictions, then we have reason 
 for saying this, viz. : — that the province and the 
 inestimable benefit of the littera scripta is that 
 of being a record of truth, and an authority of 
 appeal, and an instrument of teaching in the 
 hands of a teacher ; but that, if we wish to be- 
 come exact and fully furnished in any subject of 
 teaching which is diversified and complicated, 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 13 
 
 we must consult the living man and listen to his 
 living voice. I am not bound to investigate the 
 cause of this, and anything I may say will, I am 
 conscious, be short of its full analysis ; — perhaps 
 we may suggest, that no books can get through 
 the number of minute questions which it is 
 possible to ask on any extended subject, or hit 
 upon the very difEculties which are respectively 
 felt by each reader in succession. Or again, 
 that no book can convey the special spirit and 
 delicate peculiarities of its subject with that 
 rapidity and certainty which attend on the sym- 
 pathy of mind with mind, through the eyes, the 
 look, the accent, and the manner, in casual ex- 
 pressions thrown off at the moment, and the un- 
 studied turns of familiar conversation. But I am 
 already dwelling too long on what is but an inci- 
 dental portion of my main subject. Whatever 
 be the cause, the fact is undeniable. The gene- 
 ral principles of any study you may learn by 
 books at home ; but the detail, the colour, the 
 tone, the air, the life which makes it live in us, 
 you must catch all these from those in whom it 
 lives already. You must imitate the student in 
 French or German, who is not content with his 
 grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you 
 
14 •'WHAT IS A UNIVEKSITT? 
 
 must take example from the young artist, who 
 aspires to visit the great Masters in Florence and 
 in Rome. Till we have discovered some intel- 
 lectual 'daguerreotype, which takes off the course 
 of thought, and the form,' lineaments, and fea- 
 tures of truth, as completely, and minutely, as 
 the optical instrument produces the sensible ob- 
 ject, we must come to the teachers of wisdom to 
 learn wisdom ; we must repair to the fountain, 
 and drink there. Portions may go from thence 
 to the ends of the earth by means of books ; but 
 the fulness is in one place alone. It is in such 
 assemblages and congregations of intellect that 
 books themselves, the master -pieces of human 
 genius, are written, or at least originated. 
 
 The principle on which I have been insisting 
 is so obvious, and instances in point so ready, 
 that I should think it tiresome to proceed with 
 the subject, except that one or two illustrations 
 may serve to explain my own language about it, 
 which may not have been as clear as the subject 
 on which it has been employed. 
 
 For instance, the polished manners and high- 
 bred behaviour which are so difficult of attain- 
 ment, and so strictly personal when attained 
 which are so much admired in society, from 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 15 
 
 society are obtained. All that goes to constitute , 
 a gentleman, — the carriage, gait, address, ges- 
 tures, voice; the ease, the self-possession, the 
 courtesy, the power of conversing, the success 
 in not offending ; the lofty principle, the delicacy 
 of thought, the happiness of expression, the 
 taste and propriety, the generosity and forbear- 
 ance, the candour and consideration, the open- 
 ness of hand ; — these qualities, some of them 
 come by nature, some of them may be found 
 in any rant, some of them are a direct precept 
 of Christianity ; but the full assemblage of them, 
 bound up in the unity of an individual cha- 
 racter, do we expect they can be learned from; 
 books? are they not necessarily acquired, where 
 they are to be found, in high society? The 
 very nature of the case leads us to say so ; you 
 cannot fence without an antagonist, nor chal- 
 lenge all comers in disputation before you have 
 supported a thesis ; and in like manner, it stands 
 to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you 
 have the world to converse with; you cannot 
 unlearn your natural bashfulness, or awkward- 
 ness, or stiffness, or other besetting deformity, 
 till you serve your time in some school of 
 manners. "Well, and is' it not so in matter of 
 
16 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 fact? The ' metropolis, the court, the great 
 houses of the land, are the centres to which at 
 stated times the country comes up, as to shrines 
 of refinement and good taste ; and then in due 
 time the country goes back again home, en- 
 riched with a portion of those social accomplish- 
 ments, which those very visits serve to call out 
 and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them. 
 We are unable to conceive how the "gentle- 
 manlike" can otherwise be maintained; and 
 maintained in this way it is. 
 
 And now a second instance : and here too I 
 am going to speak without personal experience 
 of the subject I am introducing. I admit I 
 have not been in Parliament, any more than I 
 have figured in the beau monde; yet I cannot 
 ^but think that statesmanship, as well as high 
 breeding, is learned, not by books, but in certain 
 centres of education. If it be not presumption 1 
 to say so, Parliament puts a clever man au 
 courant with politics and affairs of state in a 
 way surprising to himself. A member of the 
 Legislature, if tolerably observant, begins to see 
 things with new eyes, even though his views 
 undergo no change. Words have a meaning 
 now, and ideas a reality, such as they had not 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 17 
 
 before. He hears a vast deal in public speeches If 
 and private conversation, which is never put 
 into print. The bearings of measures and 
 events, the action of parties, and the persons of 
 friends and enemies, are brought out to the man 
 who is in the midst of them with a distinctness 
 which the most diligent perusal of newspapers 
 will fail to throw around them. It is access to 
 the fountain-heads of political wisdom and ex- 
 perience, it is daily intercourse, of one kind or 
 another, with the multitude who go up to them, 
 it is familiarity with business, it is access to the 
 contributions of fact and opinion thrown toge- 
 ther by many witnesses from many quarters, 
 which does this for him. However, I need not 
 account for a fact, to which it is sufficient to 
 appeal; that the Houses of Parliament and the 
 atmosphere around them are a sort of Univer- 
 sity of politics. 
 
 As regards the world of science, we find a 
 remarkable instance of the principle which I am 
 illustrating, in the periodical meetings for its 
 advance which have arisen in the course of the 
 last twenty years, such as the British Associa- 
 tion. Such gatherings would to many persons 
 appear at first sight simply preposterous. Above 
 
18 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 all subjects of study, Science is conveyed, is 
 
 propagated, by books, or by private teaching; 
 
 experiments and investigations are conducted in 
 
 I silence ; discoveries are made in solitude. What 
 i » • 
 
 have philosophers to do with festive celebrities, 
 
 and' panegyrical solemnities with mathematical 
 and physical truth ? Yet on a closer attention 
 ^ to the subject, it is found that not even scientific 
 thought can dispense with the suggestions, the 
 instruction, the stimulus, the sympathy, the 
 intercourse with mankind on a large scale, which 
 such meetings secure. A fine time of year is 
 chosen, when days are long, skies are bright, 
 the earth smiles, and all nature rejoices; a city 
 or town is taken by turns, of ancient name or 
 modern opulence, where buildings are spacious 
 and hospitality hearty. The novelty of place 
 and circumstance, the excitement of strange, or 
 the refreshment of well-known faces, the majesty 
 of rank or of genius, the amiable charities of 
 men pleased both with themselves and with 
 each other ; the elevated spirits, the circulation 
 of thought, the curiosity ; the morning sections, 
 the outdoor exercise, the well-furnished, well- 
 earned board, the not ungraceful hilarity, the 
 evening circle; the brilliant lecture, the dis- 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 19 
 
 cussions or collisions or guesses of great men 
 one with another, the narratives of scientific 
 processes, of hopes, disappointments, conflicts, 
 and successes, the splendid eulogistic orations; 
 these and the like constituents of the annual 
 celebration, are considered to do something real 
 and substantial for the advance of knowledge 
 
 o 
 
 which can be done in no other way. Of course 
 they can but be occasional: they answer to the 
 annual Act, or Commencement, or Commemora- 
 tion of a University, not to its ordinary con- 
 dition ; but they are of a University nature ; and 
 I can well believe in their utility. They issue 
 in the promotion of a certain living and, as it 
 were, bodily communication of knowledge from 
 one to another, of a general interchange of 
 ideas, a comparison and adjustment of science 
 with science, of an enlargement of mind, intel- 
 lectual and social, of an ardent love of the par- 
 ticular study, which may be chosen by each 
 individual, and a noble devotion to its interests. 
 
 Such meetings, I repeat, are but periodical, i- 
 and only partially represent the idea of a Uni- 
 versity. The bustle and whirl which are their 
 usual concomitants, are in ill keeping with the 
 order and gravity of earnest intellectual educa- 
 
20 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 tion. We desiderate the means of instruction 
 without the interruption of our ordinary habits; 
 nor need we seek it long, for the natural course 
 of things brings it about, while we debate over 
 it. In every great country, the metropolis itself 
 becomes a sort of necessary University, whether 
 we will or no. As the chief city is the seat of 
 the court, of high society, of politics, and of law, 
 so as a matter of course is it the seat of letters 
 also ; and at this time, for a long term of years, 
 London and Paris are in fact and in operation 
 Universities, though in Paris its famous Univer- 
 sity is no more, and in London a University 
 scarcely exists except as a board of management. 
 The newspapers, magazines, reviews, 'journals, 
 and periodicals of all kinds, the publishing trade, 
 the libraries, museums, and academies there found, 
 the learned and scientific societies, necessarily 
 invest it with the functions of a University ; and 
 that atmosphere of intellect, which in a former 
 age hung over Oxford or Bologna or Salamanca, 
 has, with the change of time, moved away to 
 the centre of civil government. Thither come 
 up youths from all parts of the country, the 
 students of law, medicine, and the fine arts, and 
 the employes and attaches of literature. There 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 21 
 
 they live, as chance determines; and they are 
 satisfied with their temporary home, for they 
 find in it all that was promised to them there. 
 They have not come in vain, as far as their own 
 object in coming is concerned. They have not 
 learned any particular religion, but they have 
 learned their own particular profession well. 
 They have, moreover, become acquainted with 
 the habits, manners, and opinions of their place 
 of Tsojourn, and done their part in maintaining 
 the tradition of them. We cannot then be 
 without virtual Universities; a metropolis is 
 such : the simple question is, whether the edu- 
 cation sought and given should be based on 
 principle, formed upon rule, directed to the 
 highest ends, or left to the random succession of 
 masters and schools, one after another, with a 
 melancholy waste of thought and an extreme 
 hazard of truth. 
 
 Religious teaching itself affords us an illustra- 
 tion of our subject to a certain point. It does 
 not indeed seat itself merely in centres of the 
 world ; this is impossible from the nature of the 
 case. It is intended for the many, not the few ; 
 its subject-matter is truth necessary, not truth 
 » recondite and rare ; but it concurs in the prin- 
 
22 "WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 cipje of a University so far as this, that its great 
 instrument, or rather organ, has ever been that 
 which nature prescribes in all education, the 
 personal presence of a teacher, or, in theological'* 
 language, Oral Tradition. It is the living voice, 
 the breathing form, the expressive countenance, 
 which preaches, which ' catechises. Truth, a 
 subtle, invisible, ' manifold spirit, is poured into 
 the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, 
 through his affections, imagination, and reason ; 
 it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there 
 in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it, 
 by questioning and requestioning, by correcting 
 and explaining, by progressing, and then re- 
 curring to first principles, by all those ways 
 which are implied in the word " catechising". 
 In the first ages, it was a work of long time ; 
 months, sometimes years, were devoted to the 
 arduous task of disabusing the mind of the in- 
 cipient Christian of its "pagan errors, and of 
 moulding it upon the Christian faith. , The Scrip- 
 tures indeed were at hand for the study of those 
 who could avail themselves of them; but St. 
 Irenasus does not hesitate to speak of whole 
 races, who had been converted to Christianity, 
 without being able to read them. To be unable 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 23 
 
 to read or write was in those times no evidence 
 of want of learning: the hermits of the deserts 
 were, in this sense of the word, illiterate; yet 
 the great St. Antony, though he knew not 
 letters, was a match in disputation for the 
 learned philosophers who came to try him. 
 Didymus again, the great Alexandrian theologian, 
 was blind. The ancient discipline, called the 
 Disciplina Arcani, involved the same principle. 
 The more sacred doctrines of Revelation were 
 not committed to books, but passed on by suc- 
 cessive tradition. The doctrines of the Blessed 
 Trinity and the Eucharist appear to have 
 been so handed down for some hundred years ; 
 and when at length reduced to writing, they 
 have filled many folios, which after all have left 
 much unsaid. 
 
 But I have said more than enough in illustra- 
 tion ; I end as I began ; — a University is a place 
 of 'concourse, whither students come from every 
 quarter for every kind of knowledge. You 
 cannot have the best of every kind everywhere ; 
 you must go to some great city or emporium for 
 it. There you have all the choicest productions 
 of nature and art all together, which you find 
 each in its own separate place elsewhere. All 
 
24 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 
 
 the riches of the land, and of the world, are 
 carried up thither ; there are the best markets, 
 and there the best workmen. It is the centre of 
 trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire 
 of rival skill, and the standard of things rare 
 and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries 
 of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful . 
 voices and miraculous performers. It is the 
 place for great preachers, great orators, great 
 nobles, great statesmen. /In the nature of things^ 
 greatness and unity go--together ; excellence 
 implies a centre. Such, then, for the third or 
 fourth time, is a University ; I hope I do not 
 weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the 
 place to which a thousand schools make contri- 
 butions ; in which the intellect may safely range 
 and speculate, sure to find its equal in some 
 antagonist activity, and its judge in the tribunal 
 of truth. It is a place where inquiry is pushed 
 forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, 
 and rashness rendered innocuous, and error ex- 
 posed, by the collision of mind with mind, and 
 knowledge with knowledge. It is the place 
 where the professor becomes eloquent, and a 
 missionary and preacher of science, displaying 
 it in its most complete and most winning form, 
 
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 25 
 
 pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, 
 and lighting up his own love of it in the breasts 
 of his hearers. It is the place where the cate- 
 chist makes good his ground as he goes, treading 
 in the truth day by day into the ready memory, 
 and wedging and tightening it into the ex- 
 panding reason. It is a place which attracts the 
 affections of the young by its fame, wins the 
 judgment of the middle-aged by its beauty, and 
 rivets the memory of the old by its associations. 
 (It_is_a_ seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a 
 minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the 
 rising generation. It is this and a great deal 
 more, and demands a somewhat better head and 
 hand than mine to describe it well. 
 
 Such is it in its idea and in its purpose ; such 
 in good measure has it before now been in fact. 
 Shall it ever be again ? We are going forward 
 in the strength of the Cross, under the patronage 
 of Mary, in the name of Patrick, to attempt it. 
 
26 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 If we would know what a University is, con- 
 sidered in its elementary idea, we must betake 
 ourselves to the first and most celebrated home 
 of European literature, and source of European 
 civilization, to the bright and beautiful Athens, — 
 Athens, whose schools drew to her bosom, and 
 then sent back again to the business of life, the 
 youth of the Western World for a long thousand 
 years. Seated on the verge of the continent, 
 the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a 
 central metropolis of knowledge ; yet, what it 
 lost in convenience of approach, it gained in its 
 neighbourhood to the traditions of the mys- 
 terious East, and in the loveliness of the region 
 in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort of 
 ideal land, where all archetypes of the great 
 and the fair were found in substantial being, and 
 all departments of truth explored, and all di- 
 versities of intellectual power exhibited, wlfere 
 
SITE OF A UNIVEESITT. 27 
 
 taste and philosophy were majestically enthroned 
 as in a royal court, where there was no so- 
 vereignty but that of mind, and no nobility but 
 that of genius, where professors were rulers, and 
 princes did homage ; hither flocked continually 
 from the very corners of the orbis terrarum, the 
 many-tongued generation, just rising, or just 
 risen into manhood, to gain wisdom. 
 
 Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and 
 nursed the infant genius of his people, and 
 Cimon, after the Persian war, had given it a 
 home. That war had established the naval 
 supremacy of Athens ; she had become an impe- 
 rial state ; and the Ionians, bound to her by the 
 double chain of kindred and of subjection, were 
 importing into her both their merchandize and 
 their civilization. The arts and philosophy of 
 the Asiatic coast were easily carried across the 
 sea, and there was Cimon, as I have said, with 
 his ample fortune, ready to receive them with 
 due honours. Not content with patronizing 
 their professors, he built the first of those noble 
 porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, 
 and he formed the groves, which in process of 
 time became the celebrated Academy. Planting 
 is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was 
 
28 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 one of the most beneficent, of employments. 
 Cimon took in hand the wild wood, pruned and 
 dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks 
 and welcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable 
 to the authors of the city's civilization, was he 
 ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity. 
 His trees extended their cool, umbrageous 
 branches over the merchants, who assembled 
 in the Agora, for many generations. 
 
 Those merchants certainly had deserved that 
 act of bounty ; for all the while their ships had 
 been carrying forth the intellectual fame of 
 Athens to the western world. Then commenced 
 what may be called her University existence. 
 Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the go- 
 vernment and in the patronage of art, is said by 
 Plutarch to have entertained the idea of making 
 Athens the capital of federated Greece : in this 
 he failed, but his encouragement of such men as 
 Phidias and Anaxagoras led the Way to her 
 acquiring a far more lasting sovereignty over a 
 far wider empire. Little understanding the 
 sources of her own greatness, Athens would go 
 to war : peace is the interest of a seat of com- 
 merce and the arts ; but to war she went ; yet to 
 her, whether peace or war, it mattered not. 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 29 
 
 The political power of Athens waned and disap- 
 peared ; kingdoms rose and fell ; centuries rolled 
 away, — they did but bring fresh triumphs to the 
 city of the poet and the sage. There at length 
 the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to 
 meet the blue-eyed Gaul ; and the Cappadocian, 
 late subject of Mithridates, gazed without alarm 
 at the haughty conquering Roman. Revolution 
 after revolution passed over the face of Europe, 
 as well as of Greece, but still she was there, — 
 Athens, the city of mind, — as radiant, as splen- 
 did, as delicate, as young, as ever she had been. 
 
 Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed 
 by the blue -35gean, many is the spot more 
 beautiful or sublime to see, many the territory 
 more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, 
 which in the same perfection was nowhere else. 
 The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of 
 Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the 
 gift ; Bceotia, which lay to its immediate north, 
 was notorious for its very want of it. The 
 heavy atmosphere of that Boeotia might be 
 good for vegetation, but it was associated in 
 popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotian 
 intellect: on the contrary, the special purity, 
 elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of 
 
30 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its genius,- * 
 did that for it which earth did not;— it brought 
 out every bright hue and tender shade of the 
 landscape on which it was spread, and would 
 have illuminated the face even of a more bare 
 and rugged country. 
 
 A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its 
 greatest length, and thirty its greatest breadth; 
 two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an angle; 
 three prominent mountains, commanding the 
 plain, — Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an 
 unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not always 
 full ; — such is about the report which the agent 
 of a London company would have made of 
 Attica. He would report that the climate was 
 mild ; the hills were limestone ; there was plenty 
 of good marble ; more pasture land than at first 
 survey might have been expected, sufficient 
 certainly for sheep and goats ; fisheries produc- 
 tive ; silver mines once, but long since worked ■•• 
 out ; figs fair ; oil firegrate ; olives in profusion. 
 i But what he would not think of noting down, ;. 
 was, that that olive tree was so choice in nature 
 and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious^ 
 veneration; and that it took so kindly to the 
 light soil, as to expand into woods upon the 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 31 
 
 open plain, and to climb up and fringe the hills. 
 He would not think of writing word to his 
 employers, how that clear air, of which I have 
 spoken, brought out, yet blended and subdued, 
 the colours on the marble, till they had a soft- 
 ness and harmony, for all their richness, which 
 in a picture looks exaggerated, yet is after all 
 within the truth. He would not tell, how that 
 same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened 
 up the pale olive, till the olive forgot its mono- 
 tony, and its cheek glowed like the arbutus or 
 beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say 
 nothing of the thyme and thousand fragrant 
 herbs which carpeted Hymettus ; he would hear 
 nothing of the hum of its bees ; nor take much 
 account of the rare flavour of its honey, since 
 Gozo and Minorca were sufficient for the English 
 demand. He would look over the iEgean from 
 the height he had ascended; he would follow 
 with his eye the chain of islands, which, starting 
 from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the 
 fabled divinities of Attica, when they would 
 visit their Ionian cousins, a sort of viaduct 
 thereto across the sea : but this thought would 
 not occur to him, nor any admiration of the 
 . dark violet billows with their white edges down 
 
32 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 below; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of 
 silver upon the rocks, which slowly rise aloft 
 like water spirits from the deep, then shiver, and 
 break, and spread, and shroud themselves, and 
 disappear, in a soft mist of foam ; nor of the 
 gentle, incessant heaving and panting of the 
 whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, 
 keeping steady time, like a line of soldiery, as 
 they resound upon the hollow shore, — he would 
 not deign to notice the restless living element at 
 all, except to bless his stars that he was not upon 
 it. Nor the distinct detail, nor the refined 
 colouring, nor the graceful outline and roseate 
 golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold 
 shadows cast from Otus or Laurium by the de- 
 clining sun; — our agent of a mercantile firm 
 would not value these matters even at a low 
 figure. Rather we must turn for the sympathy 
 we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from a 
 semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the 
 earth, as to a shrine, where he might take his 
 fill of gazing on those emblems and coruscations 
 of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the 
 stranger from a remote province, from Britain or 
 from Mauritania, to whom a scene so different 
 from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his. 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 33 
 
 fiery choking sands, would have shown him in 
 a measure what a real University must be, by 
 holding out to him the sort of country, which 
 was its suitable home. 
 
 Nor was this all a University required, and 
 found in Athens. No one, even there, could 
 live on poetry. If the students at that famous 
 place had nothing better than bright hues 
 and soothing sounds, they would not have 
 been able or disposed to turn their residence 
 there to much account. Of course they must 
 have the means of living, nay, in a certain sense, 
 of enjoyment, if Athens was to be an Alma 
 Mater at the time, or to remain afterwards a 
 pleasant thought in their memory. And so they 
 had : be it recollected Athens was a port, and a 
 mart of trade, perhaps the first in Greece ; and 
 this was very much to the point, when a num- 
 ber of strangers were ever flocking to it, whose 
 combat was to be with intellectual, not physical 
 difficulties, and who claimed to have their bodily 
 wants supplied, that they might be at leisure to 
 set about furnishing their minds. Now, barren 
 as was the soil of Attica, and bare the face of 
 the country, yet it had only too many resources 
 for an elegant, nay luxurious abode there. So 
 
34 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 abundant were the imports of the place, that it 
 was a common saying, that the productions, 
 which were found singly elsewhere, were brought 
 all together in Athens. Corn and wine, the 
 staple of subsistence in such a climate, came 
 from the isles of the ^gean; fine wool and 
 carpeting from Asia Minor ; slaves, as now, from 
 the Euxine, and timber too ; and iron and brass 
 from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The 
 Athenian did not condescend to manufactures 
 himself, but encouraged them in others; and a 
 population of foreigners caught at the lucrative 
 occupation both for home consumption and for 
 exportation. Their cloth, and other textures 
 for dress and furniture, and their hardware — for 
 instance, armour — were in great request. Labour 
 was cheap ; stone and marble in plenty ; and the 
 taste and skill, which at first were devoted to 
 public buildings, as temples and porticos, were 
 in course of time applied to the mansions of 
 public men. If nature did much for Athens, it 
 is undeniable that art did much more. 
 
 Here some one will interrupt me with the 
 remark: "By the bye, where are we, and 
 whither are we going?— what has all this to do 
 with a University ? at least what has it to do 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 35 
 
 with education ? It is instructive doubtless ; but 
 still bow much has it to do with your subject?" 
 Now I beg to assure the reader that I am most 
 conscientiously employed upon my subject; and 
 I should have thought every one would have 
 seen this: however, since the objection is made, 
 I may be allowed to pause awhile, and show 
 distinctly the drift of what I have been saying, 
 before I go farther. What has this to do with 
 my subject ! why, the question of the site is the 
 very first that comes into consideration, when a 
 Studium Generate is contemplated ; for that site 
 should be a liberal and noble one ; who will 
 deny it? All authorities agree in this, and very 
 little reflection will be sufficient to make it clear. 
 I recollect a conversation I once had on this 
 very subject with a very eminent man. I was a 
 youth of eighteen, and was leaving my Uni- 
 versity for the Long Vacation, when I found 
 myself in company in a public conveyance with 
 a middle-aged person, whose face was strange to 
 me. However, it was the great academical 
 luminary of the day, whom afterwards I knew 
 very well. Luckily for me, I did not suspect 
 it ; and luckily too, it was a fancy of his, as his 
 friends knew, to make himself on easy terms 
 
36 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 especially with stage-coach companions. So, 
 what with my flippancy and his condescension, I 
 managed to hear many things which were novel 
 to me at the time ; and one point which he was 
 strong upon, and was evidently fond of, was the 
 material pomp and circumstance which should 
 environ a great seat of learning. He considered 
 it was worth the consideration of the govern- 
 ment, whether Oxford should not stand in a 
 domain of its own. An ample range, say four 
 miles in diameter, should he turned into wood 
 and meadow, and the University should be ap- 
 proached on all sides by a magnificent park, 
 with fine trees in groups and groves and avenues, 
 and with glimpses and views of the fair city, as 
 the traveller drew near it. There is nothing 
 surely absurd in the idea, though it would cost 
 a round sum to realise it. What has a better 
 claim to the purest and fairest possessions of 
 nature, than the seat of wisdom? So thought 
 my coach companion; and he did but ex- 
 press 'the tradition of ages and the instinct of 
 mankind. 
 
 For instance, take the great University of 
 Paris. That famous school engrossed as its 
 territory the whole south bank of the Seine, and - 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 37 
 
 occupied one half, and that the pleasanter half, 
 of the city. King Louis had the island pretty 
 well as his own, — it was scarcely more than a 
 fortification; and the north of the river was 
 given over to the nobles and citizens to do what 
 they could with its marshes; but the eligible 
 south, rising from the stream, which swept 
 around its base, to the fair summit of St. Gene- 
 vieve, with its broad meadows, its vineyards and 
 its gardens, and with the sacred elevation of 
 Montmartre confronting it, all this was the in- 
 heritance of the University. There was that 
 pleasant Pratum, stretching along the river's 
 bank, in which the students for centuries took 
 their recreation, which Alcuin seems to mention 
 in his farewell verses to Paris, and which has 
 given a name to the great Abbey of St. Germain- 
 des-Pres. For long years it was devoted to the 
 purposes of innocent and healthy enjoyment; but 
 evil times came on the University; disorder 
 arose within its precincts, and the fair meadow 
 became the scene of party brawls ; heresy stalked 
 through Europe, and, Germany and England no 
 longer sending their contingent of students, a 
 heavy debt was the consequence to the acade- 
 mical body. To let their lands was the only 
 
38 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 resource left to them: buildings rose upon it, 
 and spread along the green sod, and the country 
 at length became town. Great was the grief 
 and indignation of the doctors and masters, 
 when this catastrophe occurred. " A wretched 
 sight", said the Proctor of the German nation, 
 " a wretched sight, to witness the sale of that 
 ancient manor, whither the muses were wont to 
 wander for retirement and pleasure. Whither 
 shall the youthful student now betake himself, 
 what relief will he find for his eyes, wearied 
 with intense reading, now that the pleasant 
 stream is taken from him ?" Two centuries and 
 more have passed since this complaint was 
 uttered ; and time has shown that the outward 
 calamity, which it recorded, was but the emblem 
 of the great moral vicissitude, which was to 
 follow ; till the institution itself has followed its 
 green meadows, into the region of things which 
 once were and now are not. 
 
 And in like manner, when they were first 
 contemplating a University in Belgium, some 
 centuries ago, "Many", saysLipsius, "suggested 
 Mechlin, as an abode healthy and clean, but 
 Louvain was preferred, as for other reasons, so 
 because no city seemed, from the disposition of 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 39 
 
 place and people, more suitable for learned 
 leisure. Who will not approve the decision? 
 Can a site be healthier or more pleasant? The 
 atmosphere pure and cheerful ; the spaces open 
 and delightful; meadows, fields, vines, groves, 
 nay, I may say, a rus in urbe. Ascend and 
 walk round the walls ; what do you look down 
 upon? Does not the wonderful and delightful 
 variety smooth the brow and soothe the mind? 
 Tou have corn, and apples, and grapes; sheep 
 and oxen ; and birds chirping or singing. Now 
 carry your feet or your eyes beyond the walls ; 
 there are streamlets, the river meandering along ; 
 country-houses, convents, the superb fortress; 
 copses or woods fill up the scene, and spots for 
 simple enjoyment". And then he breaks out 
 into poetry: 
 
 Salvete Athens nostra, Athenae Belgicse, 
 Te Gallus, te Germanus, et te Sarmata 
 Invisit, et Britannus, et te duplicis 
 Hispaniae alumnus, etc. 
 
 Extravagant, then, and wayward as might be 
 the thought of my learned coach companion, 
 when, in the nineteenth century, he imagined, 
 Norman-wise, to turn a score of villages into a 
 
40 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 park or pleasaunce, still, the waywardness of his 
 fancy is excused by the justness of his principle ; 
 for certainly, such as he would have made it, a 
 University ought to be. Old Antony-a-Wood, 
 discoursing on the demands of a University, had 
 expressed the same sentiment long before him; 
 as Horace in ancient times, with reference to 
 Athens itself, when he spoke of seeking truth 
 " in the groves of Academe". And to Athens, 
 as will be seen, Wood himself appeals, when he 
 would discourse of Oxford. Among "those 
 things which are required to make a University", 
 he puts down, — 
 
 " First, a good and pleasant site, where there 
 is a wholesome and temperate constitution of the 
 air; composed with waters, springs or wells, 
 woods and pleasant fields ; which being obtained, 
 those commodities are enough to invite students 
 to stay and abide there. As the Athenians in 
 ancient times were happy for their conveniences, 
 so also were the Britons, when by a remnant of 
 the Grecians that came amongst them, they 
 or their successors selected such a place in 
 Britain to plant a school or schools therein* ' 
 which for its pleasant situation was afterwards 
 called Bellositum or Bellosite, now Oxford, 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 41 
 
 privileged with all those conveniences before 
 mentioned". 
 
 By others the local advantages of that Univer- 
 sity have been more philosophically analyzed ; — 
 for instance, with a reference to its position in 
 the middle of southern England ; its situation on 
 several islands in a broad plain, through which 
 many streams flowed ; the surrounding marshes, 
 which, in times when it was needed, protected 
 the city from invaders; its own strength as a 
 military position; its easy communication with 
 London, nay, with the sea, by means of the 
 Thames; while the London fortifications hin- 
 dered pirates from ascending the stream, which 
 all the time was so ready and convenient for a 
 descent. 
 
 Alas ! for centuries past that city has lost its 
 prime honour and boast, as a servant and soldier 
 of the Truth. Once named the second school of 
 the Church, second only to Paris, the foster- 
 mother of St. Edward, St. Richard, St. Thomas 
 Cantilupe, the theatre of great intellects, of 
 Scotus, the subtle Doctor, of Hales the irrefra- 
 gable, of Occam the special, of Bacon the 
 admirable, of Middleton the solid, and of Brad- 
 wardine the profound, Oxford has now lapsed to 
 
42 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 that level of mere human loveliness, which in 
 its highest perfection we admire in Athens; 
 Nor would it have a place, now or hereafter, in 
 these columns, nor would it occur to me to 
 speak its name, except that, even in its sor- 
 rowful deprivation, it retains just so much of 
 that outward lustre, which, like the brightness 
 on the prophet's face, ought to be a ray from an 
 illumination within, as to afford me an illustra- 
 tion of the point on which I am engaged, viz., 
 what should be the material dwelling-place and 
 appearance, the local circumstances, and the 
 secular concomitants of a great University. 
 Pictures are drawn in tales of romance, of spirits 
 seemingly too beautiful in their fall to be really 
 fallen, and the holy Pope at Rome, Gregory, in 
 fact, and not in fiction, looked upon the blue 
 eyes and golden hair of the fierce Saxon youth 
 in the slave market, and pronounced them 
 Angels, not Angles ; and the . spell which this 
 once loyal daughter of the Church still exercises 
 upon the foreign visitor, even now when her 
 true glory is departed, suggests to us how far 
 more majestic, and more touching, how brimfull 
 of indescribable influence would be the presence 
 of a University, which was planted within, not 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 43 
 
 ■without, Jerusalem, — an influence, potent as her 
 truth is strong, wide as her sway is world- 
 wide, and growing, not lessening, by the extent 
 of space over which its attraction would be 
 exerted. 
 
 Let the reader then listen to the words of the 
 last learned German, who has treated of Oxford, 
 and judge for himself if they do not bear me out, 
 in what I have said of the fascination which the 
 very face and smile of a University possess over 
 those who come within its range. 
 
 "There is scarce a spot in the world", says 
 Huber, " that bears an historical stamp so deep 
 and varied as Oxford; where so many noble 
 memorials of moral and material power, coopera- 
 ting to an honourable end, meet the eye all at 
 once. He who can be proof against the strong 
 emotions which the whole aspect and genius of 
 the place tend to inspire, must be dull, thought- 
 less, uneducated, or of very perverted views. 
 Others will bear us witness, that, even side by 
 side with the Eternal Rome, the Alma Mater of 
 Oxford may be fitly named, as producing a 
 deep, a lasting, and peculiar impression. 
 
 " In one of the most fertile districts of the 
 Queen of the Seas, whom nature has so richly 
 
44 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 blessed, whom for centuries past no footstep of 
 foreign armies has desecrated, lies a broad green 
 vale, where the Cherwell and the Isis mingle- 
 their full, clear waters. Here and there prim- 
 eval elms and oaks overshadow them ; while in 
 their various windings they encircle gardens, 
 meadows, and fields, villages, cottages, farm- 
 houses, and country-seats, in motley mixture. 
 In the midst rises a mass of mighty buildings, 
 the general character of which varies between 
 convent, palace, and castle. Some few Gothic 
 church-towers and Romaic domes, it is true, 
 break through the horizontal lines ; yet the ge- 
 neral impression at a distance and at first sight, 
 is essentially different from that of any of the 
 towns of the middle ages. The outlines are far 
 from being so sharp, so angular, so irregular, so 
 fantastical ; a certain softness, a peculiar repose, 
 reigns in those broader, terrace-like rising masses. 
 Only in the creations of Claude Lorraine or 
 Poussin could we expect to find a spot to com- 
 pare with the prevailing character of this 
 picture, especially when lit up by a favourable 
 light. The principal masses consist of Colleges, 
 the University buildings, and the city churches; 
 and by the side of these the city itself is lost on 
 
SITE OF A TJNIVEKSITY. 45 
 
 distant view. But on entering the streets, we 
 find around us all the signs of an active and 
 prosperous trade. Rich and elegant shops in 
 profusion afford a sight to be found nowhere 
 but in England ; but, with all this glitter and 
 show, they sink into a modest, and, as it were, 
 a menial attitude, by the side of the grandly 
 severe memorials of the higher intellectual life, 
 memorials, -which have been growing out of 
 that life from almost the beginning of Chris- 
 tianity itself. Those rich and elegant shops are, 
 as it were, the domestic offices of these palaces 
 of learning, which ever rivet the eye of the 
 observer, while all besides seems perforce to be 
 subservient to them. Each of the larger and 
 more ancient Colleges looks like a separate 
 whole — an entire town, whose walls and monu- 
 ments proclaim the vigorous growth of many 
 centuries; and the town itself has happily 
 escaped the lot of modern beautifying, and in 
 this respect harmonises with the Colleges". 
 
 There are those who, having felt the in- 
 fluence of this ancient school, and being smit 
 with its splendour and its sweetness, ask wist- 
 fully, if never again it is to be Catholic, or 
 whether at least some footing for Catholicity 
 
46 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 may not be found there. All honour and merit 
 to the charitable and zealous hearts who so 
 inquire ! Nor can we dare to tell what in time 
 to come may be the inscrutable purposes of that 
 grace which is ever more comprehensive than 
 human hope and aspiration. But for me, from 
 the day I left its walls, I never, for good or bad, 
 have had anticipation of its future; and never 
 for a moment have I had a wish to see again a 
 place, which I have never ceased to love, and. 
 where I lived for nearly thirty years. Nay, 
 looking at the general state of things at this 
 day, I desiderate for a school of the Church, if 
 an additional school is to be granted to us, a 
 more central position than Oxford has to show. 
 Since the age of Alfred and of the first Henry, 
 the world has grown, from the west and south 
 of Europe, into four or five continents; and I 
 look for a city less inland than that old sanc- 
 tuary, and a country closer upon the highway of 
 the seas. I look towards a land both old and 
 young; old in its Christianity, young in the 
 promise of its future : a nation, which received 
 grace before the Saxon came to Britain, and 
 which has never quenched it : a Church, which 
 comprehends in its history the rise and fall of 
 
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 47 
 
 Canterbury and York, which Augustine and 
 Paulinus found, and Pole and Fisher left behind 
 them. I contemplate a people which has had a 
 long night, and will have an inevitable day. I 
 am turning my eyes towards a hundred years to 
 come, and I dimly see the island I am gazing 
 on, become the road of passage and union 
 between two hemispheres, and the centre of the 
 world. I see its inhabitants rival Belgium in 
 populousness, France in vigour, and Spain in 
 enthusiasm; and I see England taught by ad- 
 vancing years to exercise in its behalf that good 
 sense which is her characteristic towards every 
 one else. The capital of that prosperous and 
 hopeful land is situate in a beautiful bay and 
 near a romantic region; and in it I see a 
 flourishing University, which for a while had to 
 struggle with fortune, but which, when its first 
 founders and servants were dead and gone, had 
 successes far exceeding their anxieties. Thither, 
 as to a sacred soil, the home of their fathers, 
 and the fountain-head of their Christianity, 
 students are flocking from East, "West, and 
 South, from America and Australia and India, 
 from Egypt and Asia Minor, with the ease and 
 rapidity of a locomotion not yet discovered, 
 
48 SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 and last, though not least, from England, — all 
 speaking one tongue, all owning one faith, all 
 eager for one large true wisdom; and thence, 
 when their stay is over, going back again to 
 carry peace to men of good will over all the 
 earth, 
 
49 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNIVERSITY LIFE: 
 ATHENS. 
 
 However apposite may have been the digression, 
 into which I was led when I had got about half 
 through the foregoing chapter, it has had the in- 
 convenience of what may be called running me 
 off the rails; and now that I wish to proceed 
 from the point at which it tdok place, I shall find 
 some trouble, if I may continue the metaphor, in 
 getting up the steam again, or, if I may change 
 it, in getting into the swing of my subject. 
 
 It has been my desire, were I able, to bring 
 before the reader what Athens may have been, 
 viewed as what we, have since called a Uni- 
 versity ; and to do this, not with any purpose of 
 writing a panegyric on a heathen city, or of 
 denying its many deformities, or of concealing 
 what was morally base in what was intellectually 
 great, but just the contrary, of representing 
 things as they really were, so far, that is, as to 
 
50 UNIVERSITY 1IFE. 
 
 enable him to see what a University is in the 
 very constitution of society and in its own idea, 
 what is its nature and object, and what it needs 
 of aid and support external to itself to complete 
 that nature and to secure that object. 
 
 So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Ar- 
 menian, or African, or Italian, or Gallic student, 
 tossing on the waves, which would be his more 
 ordinary route to Athens, and at last casting 
 anchor at Piraeus. He is of any condition or 
 rank of life you please, and may be made to 
 order, from a prince to a peasant. Perhaps he 
 is some Cleanthes, who has been a boxer in the 
 public games. How did it ever cross his brain 
 to betake himself to Athens in search of wis- 
 dom ? or, if he came thither by accident, how 
 did the love of it ever touch his heart ? But so 
 it was, to Athens he came with three drachmas . 
 in his girdle, and he got his livelihood by 
 drawing water, carrying loads, and the like 
 servile occupations. He attached himself, of all 
 philosophers, to 'Zeno the Stoic, — to Zeno, the 
 most high-minded, the most haughty of specu- 
 lators; and out of his daily earnings the poor 
 scholar brought his master the daily sum of an 
 obolus in payment for attending his lectures. 
 
ATHENS. 51 
 
 Such progress did he make, that on Zeno's 
 death he actually was his successor in his school ; 
 and, if my memory does not play me false, he is 
 the author of a Hymn to the Supreme Being, 
 which is one of the noblest effusions of the kind 
 in classical poetry. Yet, even when he was the 
 head of a school, he continued in his illiberal 
 toil as if he had been a monk ; and, it is said, 
 that once, when the wind took his pallium, and 
 blew it aside, he was discovered to have no other 
 garment at all; — something like the German 
 student who came up to Heidelberg with no- 
 thing upon him but a great coat and a pair of 
 pistols. 
 
 Or it is another disciple of the Porch, — I 
 mean, it is one' who one day will be such, — who 
 is entering the city ; but in what different fashion 
 he comes ! It is no other than Marcus, the 
 adopted son of Titus Aurelius, Emperor of 
 Rome, and himself in course of time both Em- 
 peror and Philosopher. He comes with Yerus, 
 his future colleague; the public carriages have 
 been put at his command all along his line of 
 road, and the opulent Professors of the city crowd 
 to receive him with the honours of his rank. 
 
 Or it is a young man of great promise as an 
 
52 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 Orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, 
 which renders it necessary that he should acquire 
 the art of speaking without over-exertion, and 
 should adopt a delivery sufficient for the display 
 of his rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet 
 merciful to his physical resources on the other.' 
 He is called Cicero; he will stop hut a short 
 time, and will pass over to Asia Minor and its " 
 cities, before he returns to continue a career 
 which will render his name immortal ; and he 
 will like his short sojourn at Athens so well* 
 that he will take good care to send his son 
 thither at an earlier age than he visited it 
 himself. 
 
 But see where comes from Alexandria (for we 
 need not be very solicitous about anachronisms), , 
 a young man from twenty to twenty-two, who 
 has narrowly escaped drowning on his voyage, 
 and is to remain at Athens as many as eight or 
 ten years, yet in the course of that time will ' 
 not learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to 
 become accomplished in Greek composition, — 5 
 and in that he will succeed. He is a grave 
 person, and difficult to make out; some say he 
 is a Christian, something or other in the Chris* 
 tian line his father is for certain. He is called 
 
ATHENS. 53 
 
 Gregory, by country a Cappadocian, and will in 
 time become preeminently a theologian, and one 
 of the principal Doctors of the Greek Church. 
 
 Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature 
 and black hair, whose father has given him an 
 education at Rome above his rank in life, and 
 now is sending him to finish it at Athens ; he is 
 said to have a turn for poetry : a hero he is not, 
 and it were well if he knew it ; but he is caught 
 by the enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off 
 campaigning with Brutus and Cassius, and will 
 leave his shield behind him on the field of 
 philippi. 
 
 Or it is a mere boy of fifteen: his name is 
 Eunapius ; though the voyage was not long, sea 
 sickness, or confinement, or bad living on board 
 the vessel, threw bim into a fever, and, when 
 the passengers landed in the evening at Piraeus, 
 he could not stand. His countrymen who ac- 
 companied him, took him up among them and 
 carried him to the house of the great teacher of 
 the day, Proaeresius, who was a friend of the 
 captain's, and whose fame it was which drew the 
 enthusiastic youth to Athens. His companions 
 understand the sort of place they are in, and, 
 with the licence of academic students, they 
 
54 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 break into the philosopher's house, though he 
 appears to have retired for the night, and pro- 
 ceed to make themselves free of it, with an 
 absence of ceremony, which is only not impu- 
 dence, because Proseresius takes it so easily. 
 Strange introduction for our stranger to a seat of 
 learning, but not out of keeping with Athens; 
 for what could you expect of a place where 
 there was a mob of youths and not even the 
 pretence of control ; where the poorer lived any 
 how, and got on as they could, and the teachers 
 themselves had no protection from the humours 
 and caprices of the students who filled their 
 lecture-halls? However, as to this Eunapius, 
 ProEeresius took a fancy to the boy, and told 
 him curious stories about Athenian life. He 
 himself had come up to the University with one 
 Hephaestion, and they were even worse off than 
 Cleanthes the Stoic; for they had only one 
 cloak between them, and nothing whatever J 
 besides, except some old bedding; so when 
 Proasresius went abroad, Hephsestion lay in bed, 
 and practised himself in oratory ; and then He- 
 phsestion put on the cloak, and Proasresius took 
 his turn in the bedding. At another time there 
 was so fierce a feud between what would be 
 
ATHENS. 55 
 
 called "town and gown" in an English Univer- 
 sity, that the Professors did not dare lecture in 
 public, for fear of ill treatment. 
 
 But a freshman like Eunapius soon got ex- 
 perience for himself of the ways and manners 
 prevalent in Athens. Hardly had such a one 
 as he entered the city, when he was caught hold 
 of by a party of the academic youth, who pro- 
 ceeded to practise on his awkwardness and his 
 ignorance. At first sight one wonders at their 
 childishness ; but the like conduct obtained in 
 the medieval Universities ; and not many months 
 have passed away since the journals have told 
 us of sober Englishmen, given to matter-of-fact 
 calculations, and to the anxieties of money- 
 making, pelting each other with snow-balls on 
 their own sacred territory, and defying the 
 magistracy, wben they would interfere with their 
 privilege of becoming boys. So I suppose we 
 must attribute it to something or other in human 
 nature. Meanwhile, there stands the new-comer, 
 surrounded by a circle of his new associates, 
 who forthwith proceed to frighten, and to 
 banter, and to make a fool of him, to the extent 
 of their wit. Some address him with mock 
 politeness, others with fierceness; and so they 
 
56 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 conduct him in solemn procession across the 
 Agora to the Baths ; and as they approach, they 
 dance about him like madmen. But this was to 
 be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a sort 
 of initiation ; he thereupon received the pallium, 
 or University gown, and was suffered by his 
 tormentors to depart in peace. One alone is 
 recorded as having been exempted from this 
 persecution ; it was a youth graver and loftier 
 than even St. Gregory himself: but it was not 
 from his force of character, but at the instance 
 of Gregory, that he escaped. Gregory was his 
 bosom-friend, and was ready in Athens to shelter 
 him when he came. It was another Saint and 
 another Doctor ; the great Basil, then, — it would 
 appear, as Gregory, but a catechumen of the 
 Church. 
 
 But to return to our freshman. His troubles 
 are not at an end, though he has got his gown 
 upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he 
 to attend? He finds himself seized, before he 
 well knows where he is, by another party, or 
 three or four parties at once, like foreign porters 
 at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the 
 perplexed stranger, and thrust half a dozen 
 cards into his unwilling hands. Our youth is 
 
ATHENS. 57 
 
 plied by the hangers-on of professor this, or 
 sophist that, each of whom wishes the fame or 
 the profit of having a housefull. We will say- 
 that he escapes from their hands, — but then he 
 will have to choose for himself where he will 
 put up ; and, to tell the truth, with all the praise 
 I have already given, and the praise I shall have 
 to give, to the city of mind, nevertheless, be- 
 tween ourselves, the brick and wood which 
 formed it, the actual tenements, where flesh and 
 blood had to lodge (always excepting the man- 
 sions of the great men of the place), do not 
 seem to have been much better than those 
 Greek or Turkish towns, which are at this 
 moment a topic of interest and ridicule in the 
 public prints. A lively picture has lately been 
 set before us of Gallipoli. Take, says the 
 writer,* a multitude of the dilapidated outhouses 
 found in farm -yards in England, of the rickety 
 old wooden tenements, the cracked, shutterless 
 structures of planks and tiles, the sheds and 
 stalls, which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or 
 river-sides can supply; tumble them down on 
 the declivity of a bare bald hill ; let the spaces 
 
 * Mr. Russell's Letters in the Times newspaper. 
 
58 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 between house and house, thus accidentally de- 
 termined, be understood to form streets, winding 
 of course for no reason, and with no meaning, 
 up and. down the town; the roadway always 
 narrow, the breadth never uniform, the separate 
 houses bulging or retiring below, as circum- 
 stances may have determined, and leaning for- 
 ward till they meet overhead ; — and you have a 
 good idea of Gallipoli. I question whether this 
 picture would not nearly correspond to the spe- 
 cial seat of the muses in ancient times. Learned 
 writers assure us distinctly that the houses of 
 Athens were for the most part small and mean; 
 that the streets were crooked and narrow; that 
 the upper stories projected over the roadway; 
 and that staircases, balustrades, and doors that 
 opened outwards, obstructed it; — a remarkable 
 coincidence of description. I do not doubt at 
 all, though history is silent, that that roadway 
 was jolting to carriages, and all but impassable; 
 and that it was traversed by drains, as freely as 
 any Turkish town now. Athens seems in these 
 respects to have been below the average cities of 
 its time. " A stranger", says an ancient, " might 
 doubt, on the sudden view, if really he saw 
 Athens". 
 
ATHENS. 59 
 
 I grant all this, and much more, if you will; 
 but, recollect, Athens was the home of the in- 
 tellectual and beautiful ; not of low mechanical 
 contrivances, and material organization. Why- 
 stop within your lodging, counting the rents in 
 your wall or the holes in your tiling, when 
 nature and art call you away ? You will find just 
 such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and a 
 sleeping board, any where else in the three con- 
 tinents ; one place does not differ from another 
 indoors ; your magalia in Africa, or your grottos 
 in Syria are not perfection. I suppose you did 
 not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to 
 grope about a closet: you came to see and to 
 hear, what hear and see you could not elsewhere. 
 What food for the intellect is a procurable article 
 indoors, that you stay there looking about you ? 
 do you think to read there? where are your 
 books? do you expect to purchase books at 
 Athens? — you are much out in your calcula- 
 tions. True it is, we at this day, who live in the 
 nineteenth century, have the books of Greece as 
 a perpetual memorial; and copies there have 
 been, since the time that they were written; 
 but you need not go to Athens to procure them, 
 nor would you find them in Athens. Strange 
 
60 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 to say, strange to the nineteenth century, that 
 in the age of Plato and Thucydides, there was 
 not, it is said, a bookshop in the whole place: 
 nor was the book trade in existence till the very 
 time of Augustus. Libraries, I suspect, were 
 the bright invention of Attalus or the Ptole- 
 mies;* I doubt whether Athens had a library 
 till the reign of Hadrian. It was what the 
 student gazed on, what he heard, what he 
 caught by the magic of sympathy, not what he 
 read, which was the education furnished by 
 Athens. 
 
 He leaves his narrow lodging early in the 
 morning ; and not till night, if even then, will 
 he return. It is but a crib or kennel, — in which 
 he sleeps when the weather is inclement or the 
 ground damp ; in no respect a home. And he 
 goes out of doors, not to read the day's news- 
 paper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but to 
 imbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, and 
 to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste. 
 Out he goes; and, leaving the tumble-down 
 
 * I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which 
 the reader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof, Boeckli, 
 Bekker, etc. ; and this of course applies to whatever histo- 
 rical matter I introduce, or shall introduce. 
 
ATHENS. 61 
 
 town behind him, he mounts the Acropolis to 
 the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the 
 left. He goes to the Parthenon to study the 
 sculptures of Phidias ; to the temple of the Dios- 
 curi to see the paintings of Polygnotus. We 
 indeed take our Sophocles or JEsehylus out of 
 our coat-pocket; but, if our sojourner at Athens 
 would understand how a tragic poet can write, 
 he must betake himself to the theatre on the 
 south, and see and hear the drama literally in 
 action. Or let him go westward to the Agora, 
 and there he will hear Lysias or Andocides 
 pleading, or Demosthenes haranguing. He 
 goes farther west still, along the shade of those 
 noble planes, which Cimon has planted there ; 
 and he looks around him at the statues and por- 
 ticos and vestibules, each by itself a work of 
 genius and skill, enough to be the making of 
 another city. He passes through the city gate, 
 and then he is at the famous Ceramicus ; here 
 are the tombs of the mighty dead ; and here, we 
 will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most eleva- 
 ted, the most thrilling of orators, converting a 
 funeral oration over the slain into a philosophical 
 panegyric of the living. 
 
 Onwards he proceeds still; and now he has 
 
62 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 come to that still more celebrated Academe, 
 •which has bestowed its own name on Univer- 
 sities down to this day; and there he sees a 
 sight which will be graven on his memory till 
 he dies. Many are the beauties of the place, 
 the groves, and the statues, and the temple, and 
 the stream of the Cephissus flowing by ; many 
 are the lessons which will be taught him day 
 after day by teacher or by companion ; but his 
 eye is just now arrested by one object; it is the 
 very presence of Plato. He does not hear a 
 word that he says; he does not care to hear; he 
 asks neither for discourse nor disputation ; what 
 he sees is a whole, complete in itself, not to be 
 increased by addition, and greater than any- 
 thing else. It will be a point in the history of 
 his life; a stay for his mind to rest on, a burning 
 thought in his heart, a bond of union with men 
 like himself, ever afterwards. Such is the spell 
 which the living man exerts on his fellows, for 
 good or for evil. How nature impels us to 
 lean upon others, making virtue, or genius, or 
 name, the qualification for our doing so ! A 
 Spaniard is said to have travelled to Italy, 
 simply to see Livy; he had his fill of gazing, 
 and then went back again home. Had our 
 
ATHENS. 63 
 
 young stranger got nothing by his voyage but 
 the sight of the breathing and moving Plato, 
 had he entered no lecture-room to hear, no 
 gymnasium to converse, he had got some mea- 
 sure of education, and something to tell of to his 
 grandchildren. 
 
 But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of 
 him the only lesson to be learned in this won- 
 derful suburb. It is the region and the realm 
 of philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of 
 many centuries later ; and they imply a sort of 
 cloistered life, or at least a more than Athenian 
 observance of rule. It was the boast of the phi- 
 losophic statesman of Athens, that his country- 
 men achieved by the mere force of nature and 
 the love of the noble and the great, what other 
 people aimed at by laborious discipline ; and all 
 who came among them were submitted to the 
 same method of education. We have traced 
 our student on his wanderings from the Acro- 
 polis to the Sacred Way ; and now he is in the 
 region of the schools. No awful arch, no 
 window of many-coloured lights marks the 
 several seats of learning ; philosophy lives out of 
 doors. No close atmosphere oppresses the brain 
 or inflames the eyelid; no long session stiffens 
 
64 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 the limbs. Epicurus is reclining in his garden ; 
 Zeno looks like a divinity in his porch; the 
 restless Aristotle, on the other side of the city, 
 as if in antagonism to Plato, is walking his 
 pupils off their legs in his Lyceum by the 
 Illyssus. Our student has determined on en- 
 tering himself as a disciple of Theophrastus, a 
 teacher of marvellous popularity, who has 
 brought together two thousand pupils from all 
 parts of the world. He himself is of Lesbos ; 
 for masters, as well as students, come hither from 
 all regions of the earth, — as befits a University. 
 i How could Athens have collected hearers in 
 such numbers, unless she had selected teachers 
 of such power? it was the range of terri- 
 tory, which the notion of a University implies, 
 which furnished both the quantity of the one, 
 and the quality of the other. Anaxagoras was 
 from Ionia, Carneades from Africa, Zeno from 
 Cyprus, Protagoras from Thrace, and Gorgias 
 from Sicily. Andromachus was a Syrian, Proas- 
 resius an Armenian, Hilarius a Bithynian, 
 Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a Syrian. Rome 
 is celebrated for her liberality in civil matters; 
 Athens was as liberal in intellectual. There 
 was no narrow jealousy, directed against a Pro- 
 
ATHENS. 65 
 
 fessor, because lie was not an Athenian ; genius 
 and talent were the qualifications ; and to bring 
 them to Athens, was to do homage to it as a 
 University. There was a brotherhood and a 
 citizenship of mind. 
 
 Mind came first, and was the foundation of 
 the academical polity ; but it soon brought along 
 with it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of 
 fortune and the prizes of life. As time went 
 on, wisdom was not always sentenced to the 
 bare cloak of Cleanthes ; but, beginning in rags, 
 it ended in fine linen. The Professors became 
 honourable and rich; and the students ranged 
 themselves under their names, and were proud 
 of calling themselves their countrymen. The 
 University was divided into four great nations, 
 as the medieval antiquarian would style them ; 
 and in the middle of the fourth century, Proasre- 
 sius was the leader or proctor of the Attic, He- 
 phffistion of the Oriental, Epiphanius of the 
 Arabic, and Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus 
 the Professors were the patrons of clients, and 
 the hosts and proxeni of strangers and visitors, as 
 well as the masters of the schools: and the 
 Syrian or Sicilian youth who came to one or 
 other of them, would be encouraged to study by 
 
66 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 his protection, and incited to aspire by his ex- 
 ample. 
 
 Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were 
 not a hundred years old, was in circumstances to 
 enjoy the otium cum dignitate. He had a villa 
 out at Heraclea ; and he left his patrimony to his 
 school, in whose hands it remained, not only 
 safe, but fructifying, a marvellous phenomenon 
 in tumultuous Greece, for the long space of 
 eight hundred years. Epicurus too had the 
 property of the Gardens where he lectured ; and 
 these too became the property of his sect. But 
 in Roman times the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, 
 politics, and the four philosophies, were hand- 
 somely endowed by the State; some of the 
 Professors were themselves statesmen or high 
 functionaries, and brought to their favourite 
 study senatorial rank or Asiatic opulence. 
 
 Patrons such as these can compensate to the 
 freshman, in whom we have interested ourselves, 
 for the poorness of his lodging and the turbu- 
 lence of his companions. In every thing there 
 is a better side and a worse ; in every place a 
 disreputable set and a respectable, and the one 
 is hardly known at all to the other. Men come 
 away from the same University at this day, 
 
ATHENS. 67 
 
 with contradictory impressions and contradictory- 
 statements, according to the society they have 
 found there; if you believe the one, nothing 
 goes on there as it should do; if you believe 
 the other, nothing goes on as it should not. 
 Virtue, however, and decency are at least in 
 the minority every where, and under some sort 
 of a cloud or disadvantage ; and this being the 
 case, it is so much gain whenever an Herodes 
 Atticus is found, to throw the influence of 
 wealth and station on the side even of a -deco- 
 rous philosophy. A consular man, and the 
 heir of an ample fortune, this Herod was 
 content to devote his powers to a professorship, 
 and his fortunes to the patronage of literature. 
 He gave the sophist Polemo about eight thou- 
 sand pounds, as the sum is calculated, for three 
 declamations. He built at Athens a stadium six 
 hundred feet long, entirely of white marble, and 
 capable of admitting the whole population. 
 His theatre, erected to the memory of his wife, 
 was made of cedar wood curiously carved. He 
 had two villas, one at Marathon, the place of his 
 birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other at 
 Cephissia, at the distance of six ; and thither he 
 drew to him the Mite, and at times the whole 
 
68 UNIVERSITY LIFE. 
 
 body of the students. Long arcades, groves of 
 trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and 
 recruited the summer visitor. Never was so 
 brilliant a lecture-room as his evening ban- 
 queting-hall ; highly connected students from 
 Rome mixed with the sharp-witted Provincial 
 of Greece or Asia Minor; and the flippant 
 sciolist, and the nondescript visitor, half philo- 
 sopher, half tramp, met with a reception, cour- 
 teous always, but suitable to their deserts. Herod 
 was noted for his repartees; and we have in- 
 stances on record of his setting down, according 
 to the emergency, both the one and the other. 
 
 A higher line, though a rarer one, was that 
 allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one of 
 those men who seem by a sort of fascination to 
 draw others around them even without wishing 
 it. One might have deemed that his gravity 
 and his reserve would have kept them at a 
 distance; but, almost in spite of himself, he 
 was the centre of a knot of youths, who, pagans 
 as most of them were, used Athens honestly for 
 the purpose for which they professed to seek it ; 
 and, disappointed and displeased with the place 
 himself, he seems nevertheless to have been the 
 means of their profiting by its advantages. One 
 
ATHENS. 69 
 
 of these was Sophronius, who afterwards held a 
 high office in the state ; Eusebius was another, 
 at that time the bosom-friend of Sophronius, 
 and afterwards a Bishop. Celsus too is named, 
 who afterwards was raised to the government of 
 Cilicia by the Emperor Julian. Julian himself, 
 in the sequel of unhappy memory, was then at 
 Athens, and known at least to St. Gregory. 
 Another Julian is also mentioned, who was 
 afterwards commissioner of the land tax. Here 
 we have a glimpse of the better kind of society 
 among the students of Athens ; and it is to the 
 credit of the parties composing it, that such 
 young men as Gregory and Basil, men as in- 
 timately connected with Christianity, as they 
 were well known in the world, should hold 
 so high a place in their esteem and love. 
 When the two saints were departing, their com- 
 panions came around them with the hope of 
 changing their purpose. Basil persevered ; but 
 Gregory relented, and turned back to Athens 
 for a time. 
 
70 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE: 
 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 When the Catholic University is mentioned, 
 we hear people saying on all sides of us, — " Im- 
 possible ! how can you give degrees ? what will 
 your degrees be worth? where are your endow- 
 ments ? where are your edifices ? where will you 
 find students? what will government have to 
 say to you? who wants you? who will ac- 
 knowledge you ? what do you expect ? what is 
 left for you?" 
 
 Now, I hope I may say without offence, that 
 this surprise on the part of so many excellent 
 men, is itself not a little surprising. When I 
 look around at what the Catholic Church now is 
 in this country of Ireland, and am told what it 
 was twenty or thirty years ago ; when I see the 
 hundreds of good works, which in that interval 
 have been done, and now stand as monuments 
 of the zeal and charity of the living and the 
 dead; when I find that in those years new 
 
THK SOPHISTS. 71 
 
 religious orders have been introduced, and that 
 the country is now covered with convents ; when 
 I gaze upon the sacred edifices, spacious and 
 fair, which during that time have been built out 
 of the pence of the poor; when I reckon up the 
 multitude of schools now at work, and the sacri- 
 fices which gave them birth; when I reflect 
 upon the great political exertions and successes 
 which have made the same period memorable 
 in all history to come ; when I contrast what was 
 then almost a nation of bondsmen, with the 
 intelligence, and freedom of thought, and hope 
 for the future, which is its present characteristic ; 
 when I meditate on the wonderful sight of a 
 people springing again fresh and vigorous from 
 the sepulchre of famine and pestilence; and 
 when I consider that those bonds of death 
 which they have burst, are but the specimen and 
 image of the adamantine obstacles, political, 
 social, and municipal, which have all along 
 stood in the way of their triumphs, and how 
 they have been carried on to victory by the 
 simple energy of a courageous faith ; it sets me 
 marvelling to find some of those very men, who 
 have been heroically achieving impossibilities all 
 their lives long, now beginning to scruple about 
 
72 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 adding one little sneaking impossibility to the 
 list, and I feel it to be a great escape for the 
 Church that they did not insert the word " im- 
 possible" into their dictionaries and encyclo- 
 pedias at a somewhat earlier date. 
 
 However, this by the way: as to the objec- 
 tion itself, which has led to this not unnatural 
 reflection, perhaps the reader may already have 
 observed, if he has taken the trouble to follow 
 me, that in former papers I have already been 
 covertly aiming at it; and now I propose to 
 handle it avowedly, at least as far as my limits 
 will allow in one chapter. 
 
 He will recollect, perhaps, that in former 
 papers I have already been maintaining, that a 
 University consists, and has ever consisted, in 
 demand and supply, in wants which it alone can 
 satisfy and which it does satisfy, in the commu- 
 nication of knowledge, and the relation and 
 ,' bond which exists between the teacher and the 
 1 taught. Its constituting, animating principle is 
 this moral attraction of one class of persons to 
 another ; which is prior in its nature, nay com- 
 monly in its history, to any other tie whatever ; 
 so that, where this is wanting, a University is 
 alive only in name, and has lost its true essence, 
 
THE S0PHIST8. 73 
 
 •whatever be the advantages, whether of position 
 or of affluence, with which the civil power or 
 private benefactors contrive to encircle it. I am 
 far indeed from undervaluing those external ad- 
 vantages; a certain share of them is necessary 
 to its well-being : but on the whole, as it is with 
 the individual, so will it be with the body : — it 
 is talents and attainments which command suc- 
 cess. Consideration, dignity, wealth, and power, 
 are all very proper things in the territory of 
 literature ; but they ought to know their place ; 
 they come second, not first; they must not 
 presume, or make too much of themselves ; or 
 they had better be away. First intellect, then 
 secular advantages, as its instruments and as its 
 rewards; I say no more than this, but I say 
 no less. 
 
 Nor am I denying, as I shall directly show, 
 that, under any circumstances, professors will 
 ordinarily lecture, and students ordinarily attend 
 them, with a view, in some shape or other, to 
 secular advantage. Certainly ; few persons pur- 
 sue knowledge simply for its own sake. But 
 still, remuneration of some sort, both to the 
 teachers and to the taught, may be inseparable 
 from the fact of a University, and I think it is. 
 
74 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Much less am I forgetting (to view the subject 
 on another side), that intellect is helpless, because 
 ungovernable and self-destructive, unless it be 
 regulated by a moral rule and by revealed truth. 
 Nor am I saying anything in disparagement of 
 the principle, that establishments of literature 
 and science should be in subordination to eccle- 
 siastical authority. 
 
 I would not make light of any of these 
 considerations ; some I shall even assume at once, 
 as necessary for my purpose; of some I shall 
 say more hereafter ; here, however, I am merely 
 suggesting to the reader's better judgment what 
 constitutes a University, what is just enough to 
 constitute it, or what a University consists in, 
 viewed in its essence. What this is, seems to 
 me most simply explained and ascertained, as I 
 noticed in a former number, by the instance of 
 metropolitan cities. It would appear as if the 
 very same kind of needs, social and moral, which 
 give rise to metropolitan cities, give rise also to 
 Universities; nay, that every metropolis is a 
 University, as far as the rudiments of a Univer- 
 sity are concerned. Youths come up thither 
 from all parts: in order to better themselves 
 generally; — not as if they necessarily looked 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 75 
 
 for degrees in their own several pursuits, and 
 degrees recognized by the law ; not as if there 
 were to be any concursus for fellowships in 
 chemistry, for instance, or engineering, — but 
 they come to gain that instruction which will 
 turn most to their account in after life, and to 
 form good and serviceable connexions, and that, 
 as regards the fine arts, literature, and science, 
 as well as in trade and the professions. I do not 
 see why it should be more difficult for Ireland 
 to trade, if I may use the term, upon the field 
 of knowledge, than for the inhabitants of San 
 Francisco or of Melbourne to make a fortune by 
 their gold fields, or for the North of England 
 by its coal. If gold is power, wealth, influence ; 
 and if coal is power, wealth, inuflence; so is 
 knowledge. 
 
 " When house and lands are gone and spent, 
 Then learning is most excellent" ; 
 
 and, as some men go to the Antipodes for the 
 gold, so others will come to us here for the 
 knowledge. And it is as reasonable to expect 
 students, though we have no charter from the 
 State, provided we hold out the inducement of 
 good teachers, as to expect a crowd of Britishers, 
 
76 
 
 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Yankees, Spaniards, and Chinamen at the dig- 
 gings, though there are no degrees for the 
 successful use of the pickaxe, sieve, and shovel. 
 
 And history, I think, corroborates this view 
 of the matter. In all times there have been Uni- 
 versities ; and in all times they have flourished 
 \bj means of this profession of teaching and this 
 (desire of learning. They have needed nothing 
 else but this for their existence. There has been 
 a demand, and there has been a supply; and 
 there has been the supply necessarily before the 
 demand, though not before the need. This is 
 how the University, in every age, has made 
 progress. Teachers have set up their tent, and 
 ] opened their school, and students and disciples 
 have flocked around them, in spite of the want 
 of every advantage, or even of the presence of 
 every conceivable discouragement. Years, nay, 
 centuries perhaps, passed along of disco'mfort 
 and disorder: and these, though they showed 
 plainly enough that, for the well-being and per- 
 fection of a University, something more than 
 the desire for knowledge is required, yet they 
 showed also how irrepressible was that desire, 
 how reviviscent, how indestructible, how ade- 
 quate to the duties of a vital principle, in the 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 77 
 
 midst of enemies within and without, amid 
 plague, famine, destitution, war, dissension, and 
 tyranny, evils physical and social, which would 
 have been fatal to any other but a really natural 
 principle naturally developed. 
 
 Do not let the reader suppose, however, that 
 I am anticipating for Dublin at this day such 
 dreary periods or such ruinous commotions, as 
 befel the schools of the medieval period. Such 
 miseries were the accident of the times; and 
 this is why we hear so much then of protectors 
 of learning — the Charlemagnes and Alfreds, — as 
 the compensation of those miseries. It may be 
 ashed, whether such protectors do not tell against 
 the inherent vitality, on which I have been in- 
 sisting, of Universities; but in truth, powerful 
 sovereigns, like them, did but clear and keep 
 the ground, on which Universities were to build. 
 Learning in the middle ages had great foes and ' 
 great friends; we too, were we setting up a 
 school of learning in a rude period of society, 
 should have to expect perils on the one hand, 
 and to court protectors on the other; as it is, 
 however, we can afford to treat with compara- 
 tive unconcern the prospect both of the one and 
 of the other. We may hope, and we may be 
 
78 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 content, to be just let alone ; or, if we must be 
 anxious about the future, we may reasonably use 
 the words of the proverb, " Save me from my 
 friends". Charlemagne was indeed a patron of 
 learning, but he was a protector far more ; it is 
 our happiness, for which we cannot be too 
 thankful to the Author of all good, to need no 
 protector; for it is our privilege just now, what- 
 ever comes of the morrow, to live in the midst 
 of a civilization, the like of which the world 
 never saw before. The descent of enemies on 
 our coasts, the forays of indigenous marauders, 
 the sudden rise of town mobs, the unbridled 
 cruelty of rulers, the resistless sweep of pesti- 
 lence, the utter insecurity of life and property, 
 and the recklessness which is its consequence, all 
 that deforms the annals of the medieval Univer- . 
 sities, is to us for the present but a matter of 
 history. The statesman, the lawyer, the soldier, 
 the policeman, the sanitary reformer, the econo- 
 mist, have seriously wronged and afflicted us in 
 other ways, national, social, and religious ; but, 
 on the side on which I have here to view them, 
 they are acting in our behalf as a blessing from 
 heaven. They are giving us that tranquillity 
 for which the Church so variously and so 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 79 
 
 anxiously prays ; that real freedom, which enables 
 us to consult her interests, to edify her holy 
 house, to adorn her sanctuary, to perfect her 
 discipline, to inculcate her doctrines, and to 
 enlighten and form her children, " with all 
 confidence", as Scripture speaks, " without pro- 
 hibition". We are able to set up a Studium 
 Generate, without its concomitant dangers and 
 inconveniences; and the history of the past, 
 while it adumbrates for us the pattern of a Uni- 
 versity, and supplies us with a specimen of its 
 good fruits, conveys to us no presage of the 
 recurrence of those melancholy conflicts, in 
 which the cultivated intellect was in those times 
 engaged, sometimes with brute force, and some- 
 times, alas ! with revealed religion. 
 
 Charlemagne then was necessary, but not so 
 much for the University, as against its enemies ; 
 he was confessedly a patron of letters, effectual 
 as well as munificent, but he could not any how 
 have dispensed with his celebrated professors, 
 and they, as the history of literature, both before 
 and after him, shows, could probably have 
 dispensed with him. Whether we turn to the 
 ancient world or the modern, in either case we 
 have evidence in behalf of this position: we 
 
80 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 have the spectacle of the thirst of knowledge 
 acting for and by itself, and making its own way. 
 Here I shall confine myself to ancient history : 
 both in Athens and in Rome, we find it pushing 
 forward, in independence of the civil power. 
 The professors of literature seated themselves in 
 Athens without the favour of the government ; 
 and they opened their mission in Rome in spite 
 of its state traditions. It was the rising genera- 
 tion, it was the mind of youth unfettered by the 
 conventional ideas of the ruling politics, which 
 in either case became their followers. The ex- 
 citement they created in Athens is described by 
 Plato in one of his Dialogues, and has often 
 been quoted. Protagoras came to the bright 
 city with the profession of teaching " the poli- 
 tical art" ; and the young flocked around him. 
 They flocked to him, be it observed, not because 
 he promised them entertainment or novelty, 
 such as the theatre might promise, and a people 
 proverbially fickle and curious might exact ; nor, 
 on the other hand, had he any definite recom- 
 pense to hold out, — a degree, for instance, or a 
 snug fellowship, or an India writership, or a 
 place in the civil service. He offered them just 
 the sort of inducement, which carries off a man 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 81 
 
 now to a conveyancer, or a medical practitioner, 
 or an engineer, — he engaged to prepare them for 
 the line of life which they had chosen as their 
 own, and to prepare them better than Hippias 
 or Prodicus, who were at Athens with him. 
 Whether he was really able to do this, is another 
 thing altogether; or rather it makes the argu- 
 ment stronger, if he were unable ; for, if the 
 very promise of knowledge was so potent a spell, 
 what would have been its real possession ? 
 
 But now let us hear the state of the case from 
 the mouth of Hippocrates himself, — the youth, 
 who in his eagerness woke Socrates, himself 
 a young man at the time, while it was yet 
 dark, to tell him that Protagoras was come to 
 Athens. " When we had supped, and were 
 going to bed",* he says, " then my brother told 
 me that Protagoras was arrived, and my first 
 thought was to come and see you immediately ; 
 but afterwards it appeared to me too late at 
 night. As soon, however, as sleep had refreshed 
 me, up I got, and came here''. " And I", con- 
 tinues Socrates, giving an account of the con- 
 versation, "knowing his earnestness and excita- 
 
 * Carey's translation is followed almost literally. 
 
 6 
 
82 FREE TKADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 bility, said : ' What is that to you ? does Prota- 
 goras do you any harm ?' He laughed and said : 
 ' That he does, Socrates ; because he alone is 
 wise, and does not make me so'. ' Nay', said I, 
 ' do you give him money enough, and he will 
 make you wise too'. ' O Jupiter and ye gods', 
 he made answer, 'that it depended upon that! 
 for I would spare nothing of my own, or of 
 my friends' property either; and I have now 
 come to you for this very purpose, to get you to 
 speak to him in my behalf. For, besides that I 
 am too young, I have never yet seen Prota- 
 goras, or heard him speak ; for I was but a boy 
 when he came before. However, all praise him, 
 , Socrates, and say that he has the greatest skill 
 in speaking. But why do we not go to him, 
 that we may find him at home ?' " 
 
 They went on talking till the light ; and then 
 they set out for the house of Callias, where 
 Protagoras, with others of his own calling, was 
 lodged. There they found him pacing up and 
 down the portico, with his host and others, 
 among whom, on one side of him, was a son 
 of Pericles (his father being at this time in 
 power), while another son of Pericles, with an- 
 other party, was on the other. A party followed, 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 83 
 
 chiefly of foreigners, whom Protagoras had 
 " bewitched, like Orpheus, by his voice''. On 
 the opposite side of the portico sat Hippias, 
 with a bench of youths before him, ashing him 
 questions in physics and astronomy. Prodicus 
 was still in bed, with some listeners on sofas 
 round him. The house is described as quite full 
 of guests. Such is the sketch given us of this 
 school of Athens, as there represented. I do not 
 enter on the question, as I have already said, 
 whether the doctrine of these Sophists, as they 
 are called, was true or false ; more than very 
 partially true it could not be, whether in morals 
 or in physics, from the circumstances of the age ; 
 it is sufficient that it powerfully interested the 
 hearers. We see what it was that filled the 
 Athenian lecture-halls and porticos; not the 
 fashion of the day, not the patronage of the 
 great, not pecuniary prizes, but the reputation of 
 talent and the desire of knowledge, — ambition, 
 if you will, personal attachment, but not an 
 influence, political or other, external to the 
 School. " Such Sophists", says Mr. Grote, re- 
 ferring to the passage in Plato, " had nothing to 
 recommend them except superior knowledge and 
 intellectual fame, combined with an imposing 
 
84 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 personality, making itself felt in the lectures 
 and conversation". 
 
 So much for Athens, where Protagoras had at 
 least this advantage, that Pericles was his private 
 friend, if he was not publicly his patron; but 
 now when we turn to Rome, in what is almost a 
 parallel page in her history, we shall find that 
 literature, or at least philosophy, had to en- 
 counter there the direct opposition of the ruling 
 party in the state, and of the hereditary and 
 popular sentiment. The story goes, that when 
 the Greek treatises which Numa had had buried 
 with him, were accidentally brought to light, 
 the Romans had burned them, from the dread of 
 such knowledge coming into fashion. At a 
 later date decrees passed the Senate for the ex- 
 pulsion from the city, first of philosophers, then 
 of rhetoricians, who were gaining the attention 
 of the rising generation. A second decree was 
 passed some time afterwards to the same effect, 
 assigning, in its vindication, the danger, which 
 existed, of young men losing, by means of 
 these new studies, their taste for the military 
 profession. 
 
 Such was the nascent conflict between the old 
 rule and policy of Rome, and the awakening in- 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 85 
 
 tellect, at the time of that celebrated embassy of 
 the three philosophers, Diogenes the Stoic, Car- 
 neades the Academic, and Critolaus the Peripa- 
 tetic, sent to Rome from Athens on a political 
 affair. Whether they were as skilful in diplo- 
 macy as they were zealous in their own particu- 
 lar line, need not here be determined ; any how, 
 they lengthened out their stay at Rome, and em- 
 ployed themselves in giving lectures. " Those 
 among the youth", says Plutarch, " who had a 
 taste for literature went to them, and became 
 their constant and enthusiastic hearers. Espe- 
 cially, the graceful eloquence of Carneades, 
 which had a reputation equal to its talent, se- 
 cured large and favourable audiences, and was 
 noised about the city. It was reported that a 
 Greek, with a perfectly astounding power both 
 of interesting and of commanding the feelings, 
 was kindling in the youth a most ardent emotion, 
 which possessed them, to the neglect of their or- 
 dinary indulgences and amusements, with a sort 
 of rage for philosophy". Upon this, Cato took 
 up the matter upon the traditionary ground ; he 
 represented that the civil and military interests 
 of Rome were sure to suffer, if such tastes be- 
 came popular ; and he exerted himself with such 
 
86 FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 effect, that the three philosophers were sent off 
 with the least possible delay, "to return home to 
 their own schools, and in future to confine their 
 lessons to Greek boys, leaving the youth of 
 Rome, as heretofore, to listen to the magistrates 
 and the laws". The pressure of the government 
 was successful at the moment; but ultimately 
 the cause of education prevailed. Schools were 
 gradually founded; first of grammar, in the 
 large sense of the word, then of rhetoric, then 
 of mathematics, then of philosophy, and then of 
 medicine, though the order of their introduction, 
 one with another, is not altogether clear. At 
 length the emperors secured the interests of 
 letters by an establishment, which has lasted to 
 this day in the Roman University, now called 
 Sapienza. 
 
 Here are two striking instances in very dif- 
 ferent countries, to prove that it is the thirst for 
 knowledge, and not the patronage of the great, 
 which carries on the cause of literature and 
 science to its ultimate victory ; and all that can 
 be said against them is, that I have gone back a 
 great way to find them. But a general truth is 
 made up of particular instances, which cannot 
 be brought forward all at once, nor crowded 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 87 
 
 into half a dozen pages of a work like this. I 
 shall continue the subject some future time; 
 meanwhile I will but observe that, while these 
 ancient instances teach us that a University is 
 founded on principles sui generis and proper to 
 itself, so do they coincidently suggest that it 
 may boldly appeal to those principles before 
 they are yet brought into exercise, and may, 
 or rather must, take the initiative in its own 
 success. It must be set up before it can be 
 sought ; and it must offer a supply, in order to 
 create a demand. Protagoras and Carneades 
 needed nothing more than to advertise them- 
 selves in order to gain disciples; if we have a 
 confidence that we have that to offer to Irish- 
 men, to Catholics, which is good and great, and 
 which at present they have not, our success may 
 be tedious and slow in coming, but ultimately it 
 must come. 
 
 Therefore, I say, let us set up our University ; 
 let us only set it up, and it will teach the world 
 its value by the fact of its existence. What 
 ventures are made, what risks incurred by 
 private persons in matters of trade ! What 
 speculations are entered on in the departments of 
 building or engineering! What boldness in 
 
88 FREE TBADE IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 innovation or improvement has been manifested 
 by statesmen during the last twenty years! 
 Mercantile undertakings indeed may be ill- 
 advised, and political measures may be cen- 
 surable in themselves, or fatal in their results. I 
 am not considering them here in their motive or 
 their object, in their expedience or their justice, 
 but in the manner in which they have been car- 
 ried out. What largeness then of view, what in- 
 trepidity, vigour, and resolution are implied in 
 the Reform Bill, in the Emancipation of the 
 Blacks, in the finance changes, in the Useful 
 Knowledge movement, in the organization of the 
 Free Kirk, in the introduction of the penny post- 
 age, and in the railroads ! This is an age, if not 
 of great men, at least of great works ; are Catho- 
 lics alone to refuse to act on faith ? England has 
 faith in her skill, in her determination, in her 
 resources in war, in the genius of her people ; is 
 Ireland alone to fail in confidence in her children 
 and her God? Fortes fortuna adjuvat; so says 
 the proverb. If the chance concurrence of half 
 a dozen sophists, or the embassy of three philo- 
 sophers, could do so much of old to excite the 
 enthusiasm of the young, and to awaken the 
 intellect into activity, is it very presumptuous, 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 89 
 
 or very imprudent, in us at this time, to enter 
 upon an undertaking, which comes to us with 
 the blessing of St. Peter, the exhortation of the 
 Church of St. Patrick, the cooperation of the 
 faithful, the prayers of the poor, and all the 
 ordinary materials of success, resources, intellect, 
 pure intention, and self-devotion, to bring it into 
 effect? Shall it be said in future times, that 
 the work needed nought but good and gallant 
 hearts, and found them not ? 
 
90 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 I have had some debate with myself, whether 
 what are called myths and parables, and similar 
 compositions of a representative nature, are in 
 keeping with this work; yet, considering that 
 the early Christians recognized the Logi of the 
 classical writers as not inconsistent with the 
 gravity of their own literature, not to mention 
 the precedent afforded by the sacred text, I 
 think I may proceed, without apology to myself 
 or others, to impart to the reader in confidence, 
 while it is fresh on my mind, a conversation 
 which I have just had with an intimate English 
 friend, on the general subject to which these 
 columns are devoted. I do not say that it was 
 of a very important nature ; still to those who 
 choose to reflect, it may suggest more than it 
 expresses. It took place only a day or two ago, 
 on occasion of my paying him a flying visit. 
 My friend lives in a spot as convenient as it 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 91 
 
 is delightful. The neighbcmring hamlet is the 
 first station out of London of a railroad ; while 
 not above a quarter of a mile from his boundary 
 wall flows the magnificent river, which moves 
 towards the metropolis through a richness of 
 grove and meadow of its own creation. After a 
 liberal education, he entered a lucrative business ; 
 and, making a competency in a few years, ex- 
 changed New Broad Street for the " fallentis 
 semita vitse". Soon after his marriage, which 
 followed this retirement, his wife died, and left 
 him solitary. Instead of returning to the world, 
 or seeking to supply her place, he gave himself 
 to his garden and his books; and with these 
 companions he has passed the last twenty years. 
 He has lived in a largish house, the " monarch 
 of all he surveyed" ; the sorrows of the past, his 
 creed, and the humble chapel not a stone's throw 
 from his carriage-gate, have saved him from the 
 selfishness of such a sovereignty, and the op- 
 pressiveness of such a solitude ; yet not, if I may 
 speak candidly, from some of the inconveniences 
 of a bachelor life. He has his own fixed views, 
 from which it is difficult to move him, and some 
 people say that he discourses rather than con- 
 verses, though, somehow, when I am with him, 
 
I 
 
 92 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 from long familiarity, I manage to get through 
 as many words as he. 
 
 I do not know that such peculiarities can in 
 any case be called moral defects; certainly not, 
 when contrasted with the great mischiefs which 
 a life so enjoyable as his might have done to 
 him, and has not. He has indeed been in pos- 
 session of the very perfection of earthly happi- 
 ness, at least as I view things ; — mind, I say of 
 " earthly" ; and I do not say that earthly happi- 
 ness is desirable. On the contrary, man is born 
 for labour, not for self; what right has any one 
 to retire from the world and profit no one ? He 
 who takes his ease in this world, will have none 
 in the world to come. All this rings in my 
 friend's ears quite as distinctly as I may fancy it 
 does in mine, and has a corresponding effect 
 upon his conduct; who would not exchange 
 consciences with him ? but still the fact remains, 
 that a life such -as his is in itself dangerous, and 
 that, in proportion to its attractiveness. If in- 
 deed there were no country beyond the grave, it 
 would be our wisdom to make of our present 
 dwelling-place as much as ever we could ; and 
 this would be done by the very life which my 
 friend has chosen, not by any absurd excesses, 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 93 
 
 not by tumult, dissipation, excitement, but by 
 the " moderate and rational use", as Protestant 
 sermons say, " of the gifts of Providence". 
 
 Easy circumstances, books, friends, literary 
 connexions, the fine arts, presents from abroad, 
 foreign correspondents, handsome appointments, 
 elegant simplicity, gravel waits, lawns, flower 
 beds, trees and shrubberies, summer houses, 
 strawberry beds, a greenhouse, a wall for 
 peaches, "hoc erat in votis"; — nothing out of 
 the way, no hot-houses, graperies, pineries, — 
 " Persicos odi, puer, apparatus", — no mansions, 
 no parks, no deer, no preserves; these things 
 are not worth the cost, they involve the bother 
 of dependents, they interfere with enjoyment. 
 One or two faithful servants, who last on as the 
 trees do, and cannot change their place; — the 
 ancients had slaves, a sort of dumb waiter, and 
 the real article ; alas ! they are impossible now. 
 We must have no one with claims upon us, or 
 with rights; no incumbrances; no wife and 
 children. We must have acquaintance within 
 reach, yet not in the way ; ready, not trouble- 
 some or intrusive. We must have something of 
 name, or of rank, or of ancestry, or of past 
 official life, to raise us from the dead level of 
 
94 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 mankind, to afford food for the imagination of 
 our neighbours, to bring us from time to time 
 strange visitors, and to invest our home with 
 mystery. In consequence we shall be loyal 
 subjects, good conservatives, fond of old times, 
 averse to change, suspicious of novelty, because 
 we know perfectly when we are well off, and 
 that in our case " progredi est regredi". To a 
 life such as this, a man is more attached, the 
 longer he lives; and he would be more and 
 more happy in it too, were it not for the memento 
 within him, that books and gardens do not make 
 a man immortal ; that, though they do not leave 
 him, he at least must leave them, all but " the 
 hateful cypresses", and must go where the only 
 book is the book of doom, and the only garden 
 the Paradise of the just. 
 
 All this has nothing to do with our Univer- 
 sity, but nevertheless they are some of the 
 reflections which came into my mind, as I left 
 the station I have spoken of, and turned my face 
 towards my friend's abode. As I went along, 
 on the lovely afternoon of last Monday, which 
 had dried up the traces of a wet morning, and 
 as I fed upon the soothing scents and sounds 
 which filled the air, I began to reflect how the 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 95 
 
 most energetic and warlike race among the 
 descendants of Adam, had made, by contrast, 
 this Epicurean life, the " otium cum dignitate", 
 the very type of human happiness. A life in 
 the country, in the midst of one's own people, 
 was the dream of Roman poets from Virgil to 
 Juvenal, and the reward of Roman statesmen 
 from Cincinnatus to Pliny. I called to mind 
 the Corycian old man, so beautifully sketched 
 in the fourth Georgic, and then my own fantastic 
 protestation in years long dead and gone, that, 
 if I were free to choose my own line of life, 
 it should be that of a gardener in some great 
 family, a life without care, without excitement, 
 in which the gifts of the Creator screened off 
 man's evil doings, and the romance of the past 
 coloured and illuminated the matter-of-fact 
 present. 
 
 " Otium divos", I suppose the reader will say. 
 Smiling myself at the recollection of my own 
 absurdity, I passed along the silent avenues of 
 solemn elms, which, belonging to a nobleman's 
 domain, led the way towards the humbler 
 dwelling for which I was bound; and then I 
 recurred to the Romans, wandering in thought, 
 as in a time of relaxation one is wont; and I 
 
96 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 contrasted, or rather investigated, the respective 
 aspects, one with another, under which a country 
 life, so dear to that conquering people nationally, 
 presented itself severally to Cicero, to Virgil, to 
 Horace, and to Juvenal, and I asked myself 
 under which of them all was my friend's home 
 to be regarded. Then suddenly the scene 
 changed, and I was viewing it in my own way ; 
 for I had known him and it, since I was a 
 schoolboy, in his father's time ; and I recollected 
 with a sigh how I had once passed a week there 
 of my summer holidays, and what I then 
 thought of persons and things I met there, of its 
 various inmates, father, mother, brothers, and 
 sister, all of them, but himself and me, now 
 numbered with the departed. Thus Cicero and 
 Horace glided off from my field of view, like 
 the circles of a magic lantern ; and my ears, no 
 longer open to the preludes of the nightingales 
 around me, which were preparing for their 
 nightly concert, heard nothing but 
 
 The voices of the dead, and songs of other years. 
 
 Thus, deep in sad thoughts, I reached the 
 well-known garden gate, and unconsciously 
 opened it, and was upon the lower lawn, ad- 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 97 
 
 vancing towards the house, before I apprehen- 
 ded shrubberies and beds, which were sensibly 
 before me, otherwise than through my memory. 
 Then suddenly the vivid past gave way, and the 
 actual present flowed in upon me, and I saw my 
 friend pacing up and down on the side furthest 
 from me, with his hands behind him, and a 
 newspaper or some such publication in their 
 grasp. 
 
 It is an old-fashioned place; the house may 
 be of the date of George the Second ; a square 
 hall in the middle, and in the centre of it a 
 pillar, and rooms all around. The servants' 
 rooms and offices run off on the right ; a rookery 
 covers the left flank, and the drawing-room 
 opens upon the lawn. There a large plane tree, 
 with its massive branches, whilome sustained a 
 swing, when there were children on that lawn, 
 blithely to undergo an exercise of head, at 
 the very thought of which the grown man 
 sickens. Three formal terraces gradually con- 
 duct down to one of the majestic avenues, of 
 which I have already spoken ; the second and 
 third, intersected by grass walks, constitute the 
 kitchen-garden. As a boy, I used to stare at 
 
 the magnificent cauliflowers and large apricots 
 5 7 
 
98 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 which it furnished for the table ; and how diffi- 
 cult it was to leave off, when once one got 
 among the gooseberry bushes in the idle mor- 
 ning ! 
 
 I had now got close upon my friend; and, in 
 return for the schoolboy reminiscences and tran- 
 quil influences of the place, was ungrateful 
 enough to begin attacking him for his epicurean 
 life. " Here you are, you old pagan", I said, 
 " as usual, fit for nothing so much as to be one 
 of the interlocutors in a dialogue of Cicero's". 
 
 " You are a pretty fellow", he made answer, 
 " to accuse me of paganism, who have yourself 
 been so busily engaged just now in writing up 
 Athens"; and then I saw that it was several 
 numbers of the Gazette, which he had in his 
 hand, and which perhaps had given energy to 
 his step. , 
 
 After giving utterance to some general ex- 
 pressions of his satisfaction at the publication, 
 and the great interest he took in the under- 
 taking to which it was devoted, he suddenly 
 stopped, turned round upon me, looked hard in 
 my face, and taking hold of a button of my 
 coat, said abruptly : " But what on earth pos- 
 sessed you, my good friend, to have any thing 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 99 
 
 to do with this Irish University? what was it to 
 you ? how did it fall in your way ?" 
 
 I could not help laughing out; "01 see", I 
 cried, "you consider me a person who cannot 
 keep quiet, and must ever be in one scrape or 
 another''. 
 
 " Yes, but seriously, tell me", he urged, "what 
 had you to do with it? g what was Ireland to 
 you? you had your own line and your own 
 work ; was not that enough ?" 
 
 " Well, my dear Richard", I retorted, " better 
 do too much than too little". 
 
 " A tu quoque is quite unworthy of you", he 
 replied; "answer me, charissime, what had you 
 to do with an Irish undertaking? do you think 
 they have not clever men enough there to work 
 it, but you must meddle ?" 
 
 " Well", I said, " I do not think it is an Irish 
 undertaking, that is, in such a sense that it is 
 not a Catholic undertaking, and one which in- 
 timately and directly interests other countries 
 besides Ireland". 
 
 " Say England", he interposed. 
 " Well, I say and mean England: I think it 
 most intimately concerns England ; unless it was 
 an affair of England, as well as of Ireland, I 
 
100 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE* 
 
 should have sympathized in so grand a con- 
 ception, I should have done what I could to aid 
 it, but I. should have had no call, as you -well 
 say, I should have considered it presumption in 
 me, to take an active part in its execution". 
 
 He looked at me with a laughing expression in 
 his eye, and was for a moment silent ; then he 
 began again: 
 
 " You must think yourself a great genius", 
 he said, " to fancy that place is not a con- 
 dition of capacity. You are an Englishman; 
 your mind, your habits are English; you have 
 hitherto been acting only upon Englishmen, 
 with Englishmen ; do you really anticipate that 
 you will be able to walk into a new world, and 
 to do any good service there, because you have 
 done it here? Ne sutor ultra crepidam. I 
 would as soon believe that you could shoot your 
 soul into a new body, according to the Eastern 
 talc, and make it your own''. 
 
 I made him a bow; "I thank you heartily", 
 I said, " for the seasonable encouragement you 
 give me in a difficult undertaking; you are de- 
 termined, Richard, that I shall not get too 
 much refreshment from your shrubberies". 
 
 " I beg your pardon", he made answer, " do 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 101 
 
 not mistake me ; I am only trying to draw you 
 out; I am curious to know how you came to 
 make this engagement ; you know we have not 
 had any talk together for some time". 
 
 "It maybe as you say", I answered; "that 
 is, I may be found quite unequal to what I have 
 attempted; but, I assure you, not for want of 
 zealous and able assistance, of sympathizing 
 friends, — not because it is in Ireland, instead of 
 England, that I have to work". 
 
 " They tell me", he replied, " that they don't 
 mean to let you have any Englishmen about you 
 if they can help it". 
 
 " You seem to know a great deal more about 
 it here than I do in Ireland", I answered: "I 
 have not heard this; but still, I suppose, in for- 
 mer times, when men were called from one 
 country to another for a similar purpose, as Peter 
 from Ireland to Naples, and John of Melrose to 
 Paris, they did in fact go alone". 
 
 " Modest man ! " he cried, " to compare your- 
 self to the sages and doctors of the Middle Age ! 
 But still the fact is not so : far from going alone, 
 the very number they could and did spare from 
 home is the most remarkable evidence of the 
 education of the Irish in those times. Moore, I 
 
102 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 "recollect, emphatically states, that it was abroad 
 that the Irish sought, and abroad that they found, 
 the rewards of their genius. If any people ought 
 to suffer foreigners to come to them, it is they 
 who have, with so much glory to themselves, so 
 often gone to foreigners. In the passage I have 
 in my .eye, Moore calls it 'the peculiar fortune of 
 Ireland, that both in talent and in fame her sons 
 have prospered more signally abroad than at 
 home; that not so much those who confined 
 their labours to their native land, as those who 
 carried their talents and zeal to other lands, won 
 for their country the high title of the Island of 
 the Holy and the Learned'. But, not to insist 
 on the principle of reciprocity, jealousy of fo- 
 reigners among them is little in keeping with 
 that ancient hospitality of theirs, of which his- 
 tory speaks as distinctly ". 
 
 " Really '', I made answer, " begging your 
 pardon, you do not quite know what you are 
 talking about. You never were in Ireland, I 
 believe ; am I likely to know less than you ? If 
 there be a nation, which in matters of intellect 
 does not want ' protection ', to use the political 
 word, it is the Irish. A stupid people would 
 have a right to claim it, when they would set up 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 103 
 
 a University ; but, if I were you, I would think 
 twice before I paid so bad a compliment to one 
 of the most gifted nations of Europe, as to sup- 
 pose that it could not keep its ground, that it 
 would not take the lead, in the intellectual 
 arena, though competition was perfectly open. 
 If their ' grex philosophorum' spread in the 
 medieval time over Europe, in spite of the perils 
 of sea and land, will they not be sure to fill the 
 majority of chairs in their own University in an 
 age like this, from the sheer claims of talent, 
 though those chairs were open to the world? 
 No ; a monopoly would make the cleverest 
 people idle ; it would sink the character of their 
 undertaking, and Ireland herself would be the 
 first to exclaim against the places of a great 
 school of learning becoming mere pieces of 
 patronage and occasions for jobbing, like the 
 sees of the Irish Establishment". 
 
 My friend did not reply, but looked grave ; 
 at length he said that he was not stating what 
 ought to be, but what would be; Irishmen 
 boasted, and justly, that in ancient times they 
 went to Melrose, to Malmesbury, to Glaston- 
 bury, to East Anglia, to Oxford; that they 
 established themselves in Paris, Ratisbon, Padua, 
 
104 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 Pavia, Naples, and other continental schools; 
 but there was in fact no reciprocity now ; Paris 
 had not been simply for Frenchmen, nor Oxford 
 simply for Englishmen, but Ireland must be 
 solely for the Irish. 
 
 " Really, in truth", I made answer, '' to speak 
 most seriously, I think, you are prejudiced and 
 unjust, and I should be very sorry indeed to 
 have to believe that you expressed an English 
 sentiment. I am sure you do not. However, 
 you speak of what you simply do not know. 
 In Ireland, as in every country, there is of 
 course a wholesome jealousy towards persons 
 placed in important posts, such as my own, lest 
 they should exercise their power unfairly ; there 
 is a fear of jobs, not a jealousy of English; and 
 I don't suppose you think I am likely to turn 
 out a jobber. This is all I can grant you at 
 the utmost, and perhaps I grant too much. But 
 I do most solemnly assure you, that, as far as I 
 have had the means of bearing witness, there is 
 an earnest wish in the promoters and advocates 
 of this great undertaking to get the best men 
 for its execution, wherever they are to be found, 
 in England, or in France, or in Belgium, or in 
 Germany, or in Italy, or in the United States; 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 105 
 
 though there is an anticipation too, which is far 
 from unreasonable, that for most of the Pro- 
 fessorships of the University the best men will 
 be found in Ireland. Of course in particular 
 cases, there ever will be a difference of opinion 
 who is the best man ; but this does not interfere 
 at all, as is evident, with the honest desire on all 
 sides, to make the Institution a real honour to 
 Ireland and a defence of Ireland's faith". 
 
 My companion again kept silence, and so we 
 walked on ; then he suddenly said : " Come let 
 us have some tea, since you tell me" (I had told 
 him by letter), "that you cannot take a bed; 
 the last train is not over-late". — > 
 
 As we walked towards the house, " The truth 
 is", he continued, speaking slowly, " I had 
 another solution of my own difficulty myself. I 
 cannot help thinking that your Gazette makes 
 more of persons than is just, and does not lay 
 stress enough upon order, system, and rule, in 
 conducting a University. This is what I have 
 said to myself. ' After all, suppose there be an 
 exclusive system, it does not much matter; a 
 great institution, if well organized, moves of 
 itself, independently of the accident of its par- 
 ticular functionaries' . . . "Well now, is it not 
 
106 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 so?" he added briskly; "you have been laying 
 too much stress upon persons ?" 
 
 I hesitated how best I should begin to answer 
 him, and he went on: — "Look at the Church 
 herself; how little she depends on individuals ; 
 in proportion as she can develop her system, 
 she dispenses with them. In times of great 
 confusion, in countries under conversion, great 
 men are given to her, great Popes, great Evan- 
 gelists ; but there is no call for Hildebrands or 
 Ghislieris in the nineteenth century, or for 
 Winfrids or Xaviers in modern Europe. It 
 is so with states; despotisms require great 
 monarchs, Turkish or Russian; constitutions 
 manage to jog on without them; this is the 
 meaning of the famous saying ' Quantula sapi- 
 enti& regitur mundus !' What a great idea 
 again, to use Guizot's expression, is the Society 
 of Jesus ! what a creation of genius is its or- 
 ganization ! but so well adapted is the institution 
 to its object, that for that very reason it can 
 afford to crush the individual in his personal 
 gifts; so much so, that, in spite of the rare 
 talents of its members, it has even become an 
 objection to it in the mouth of its enemies, that 
 it has not produced a thinker like Scotus or 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 107 
 
 Malebranche. Now, I consider your papers 
 make too much of persons, and put system out 
 of sight; and this is the sort of consolation 
 which occurs to me, in answer to the misgivings 
 which come upon me, about the exclusiveness 
 with which the University seems to me to be 
 threatened". 
 
 " You know", I answered, " these papers have 
 not got half through their subject yet. I assure 
 you I do not at all forget, that something more 
 than able Professors are necessary to make a 
 University". 
 
 " Still", said he, " I should like to be certain 
 you were sufficiently alive to the evils which 
 spring from overvaluing them. You have talked 
 to us a great deal about Platos, Hephsestions, 
 Herods, and the rest of them, sophists one and 
 all, and very little about a constitution. All 
 that you have said has gone one way. You 
 have professed a high and mighty independence 
 of state patronage, and a conviction that the 
 demand and supply of knowledge is all in all ; 
 that the supply must be provided before the 
 demand in order to' create it; and that great 
 minds are the instruments of that supply. You 
 have founded your ideal University on indi- 
 
108 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 viduals. Then, I say, on this hypothesis, be 
 sure you have for your purpose the largest 
 selection possible; do not proclaim that you 
 mean to have the tip-top men of the age, and 
 then refuse to look out beyond one country for 
 them, as if any country, though it be Ireland, 
 had a monopoly of talent. Observe, I say this 
 on your hypothesis ; -but I confess I am disposed 
 to question its soundness, and it is in that way I 
 get over my own misgiving about you. I say 
 that, may be, your University need not have the 
 best men; it may fall back on a jog-trot system, 
 a routine, and perhaps it ought to do so''. 
 
 "Forbid it!" said I; "you cannot suppose 
 that what you have said is new to me, or that I 
 do not give it due weight. Indeed I could 
 almost write a dissertation on the subject you 
 have started, that is, on the functions and mutual 
 relations, in the conduct of human affairs, of 
 Influence and Law. I should begin by saying 
 that these are the two moving powers which 
 carry on the world, and that in the supernatural 
 order they are absolutely united in the Source 
 of all perfection. I should observe that the 
 Supreme Being is both, — a living, individual 
 Agent, as sovereign as if an Eternal Law were 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 109 
 
 not; and a Rule of right and wrong, and an 
 Order fixed and irreversible, as if He had no 
 •will, or supremacy, or characteristics of per- 
 sonality. Then I should say that here below 
 the two principles are separated, that each has 
 its own function, that each is necessary for the 
 other, and that they ought to act together ; yet 
 that it too often happens that they become 
 rivals of one another, that this or that acts of 
 itself, and will encroach upon the province, or 
 usurp the rights of the other; and that then 
 every thing goes wrong. Thus I should start, 
 and would you not concur with me? Would 
 it not be sufficient to give you hope that I am 
 not taking a one-sided view of the subject of 
 University education ?" 
 
 He answered, as one so partial to me was sure 
 to answer ; that he had no sort of suspicion that 
 I was acting without deliberation, or without 
 viewing the matter as a whole ; but still he could 
 not help saying that he thought he saw a bias in 
 me which he had not expected, and he would be 
 truly glad to find himself mistaken. " Do you 
 know", he said, "I am surprised to find that 
 you, of all men in the world, should be taking 
 the intellectual line, and should be advocating 
 
110 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 -the professorial system. Surely it was once far 
 otherwise ; I thought our line used to be, that 
 knowledge without principle was simply mis- 
 chievous, and that Professors did but represent 
 and promote that mischievous knowledge. This 
 used to be our language ; and, beyond all doubt, 
 a great deal may be said in support of it. What 
 is heresy in ecclesiastical history but the action 
 of personal influence against law and precedent ? 
 and what were such heterodox teachers as the 
 Arian leaders in primitive times, or Abelard in 
 the middle ages, but the eloquent and attractive 
 masters of philosophical schools ? And what 
 again were Arius and Abelard but the forerun- 
 ners of modern German professors, a set of 
 clever charlatans, or subtle sophists, who aim at 
 originality, show, and popularity, at the expense 
 of truth ? Such men are the nucleus of a 
 system, if system it may be called, of which dis- 
 order is the outward manifestation, and scepti- 
 cism the secret life. This you used to think; 
 but now you tell us that demand and supply are 
 all in all, and that supply must precede demand ; 
 — and that this is a University in a nutshell". 
 
 I laughed, and said he was unfair to me, and 
 rather had not understood me at all. " We are 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. Ill 
 
 neither of us theologians or metaphysicians", 
 said I ; " yet I suppose we know the difference 
 between a direct cause and a sine qua non, and 
 between the essence of a thing and its integrity. 
 Things are not content to be in fact just what 
 we contemplate them in the abstract, and no- 
 thing more ; they require something more than 
 themselves, sometimes as necessary conditions of 
 their being, sometimes for their well-being. 
 Breath is not part of man ; it comes to him from 
 without; it is merely the surrounding air, in- 
 haled, and then exhaled ; yet no one can live 
 without breathing. Place an animal under an 
 exhausted receiver, and it dies ; yet the air does 
 not enter into its definition. When then I say, 
 that a Great School or University consists in the 
 communication of knowledge, in lecturers and 
 hearers, that is, in the Professorial system, you 
 must not run away with the notion j;hat I con- 
 sider personal influence enough for its well- 
 being. It is indeed its essence, but something 
 more is necessary than barely to get on from 
 day to day; for its sure and comfortable ex- 
 istence we must look to law, rule, order; to 
 religion, from which law proceeds ; to the colle- 
 giate system, in which it is embodied ; and to 
 
112 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 \ /endowments, by which it is protected and per- 
 petuated. This is the part of the subject which 
 my papers have not yet touched upon ; nor 
 could they well treat of what comes second, till 
 they had done justice to what comes first". 
 
 I thought that here he seemed disposed to 
 interrupt me, so I interposed : " Now, please, 
 let me bring out what I want to say, while I am 
 '"full of it. I say then, that the personal in- 
 fluence of the teacher is able in some sort to 
 dispense with an academical system, but that 
 the system cannot in any sort dispense with 
 personal influence. With influence there is life, 
 without it there is none ; if influence is deprived 
 of its due position, it will not by those means 
 be got rid of, it will only break out irregularly, 
 dangerously. An academical system without 
 the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, 
 is an arctic winter ; it will create an ice-bound, 
 petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else.J 
 You will not call this any new notion of mine"; 
 and you will not suspect, after what happened 
 to me a long twenty-five years ago, that I can 
 ever be induced to think otherwise. No ! I 
 have known a time in a great School of Letters, 
 when things went on for the most part by mere 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 113 
 
 routine, and form took the place of earnestne s. 
 I have experienced a state of things, in which 
 teachers were cut off from the taught as by an 
 insurmountable barrier ; when neither party en- 
 tered into the thoughts of the other ; when each 
 lived by and in itself; when the tutor was sup- 
 posed to fulfil his duty, if he trotted on like a 
 squirrel in his cage, if at a certain hour he was 
 in a certain room, or in hall, or in chapel, as it 
 might be ; and the pupil did his duty too, if he 
 was careful to meet his tutor in that same room, 
 or hall, or chapel, at the same certain hour ; and 
 when neither the one nor the other dreamed of 
 seeing each other out of lecture, out of chapel, 
 out of academical gown. I have known places 
 where a stiff manner, a pompous voice, coldness 
 and condescension, were the teacher's attributes, 
 and where he neither knew, nor wished to 
 know, and avowed he did not wish to know, the 
 private irregularities of the youths committed to 
 his charge. 
 
 "This was the reign of Law without Influ- 
 ence, System without Personality. And then 
 again, I have seen in this dreary state of things, 
 as you yourself well know, while the many went 
 their way and rejoiced in their liberty, how that 
 
114 DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 such as were better disposed and aimed at higher 
 things, looked to the right and the left, as sheep 
 without a shepherd, to find those who would 
 exert that influence upon them which its legiti- 
 mate owners made light of; and how, wherever 
 they saw a little more profession of strictness and 
 distinctness of creed, a little more intellect, prin- 
 ciple, and devotion, than was ordinary, thither 
 they went, poor youths, like St. Anthony when 
 he first turned to God, for counsel and encou- 
 ragement; and how, as this feeling, without 
 visible cause, mysteriously increased in the sub- 
 jects of that seat of learning, a whole class of 
 teachers gradually arose, unrecognized by its 
 authorities, and rivals to the teachers whom it 
 furnished, and gained the hearts and became the 
 guides of the youthful generation, who found no 
 sympathy where they had a claim for it. And 
 then moreover, you recollect, as well as I, how, 
 as time went on and that generation grew up and 
 came into University office themselves, then, 
 from the memory of their own past discomfort, 
 they tried to mend matters, and to unite Rule 
 and Influence together, which had been so long 
 severed, and how they claimed from their pupils 
 for themselves that personal attachment which in 
 
DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. 115 
 
 their own pupillage they were not invited to be- 
 stow ; and then, how in consequence a struggle 
 began between the dry old red-tapists, as in po- 
 litics they are called, and — " 
 
 Here my friend, who had been unaccountably 
 impatient for some time, fairly interrupted me. 
 " It seems very rude 1 ', he said, " very inhospita- 
 ble; it is against my interest; perhaps you will 
 stay the night ; but if you must go, go at once 
 you must, or you will lose the train". An an- 
 nouncement like this turned the current of my 
 thoughts, and I started up. In a few seconds 
 we were walking, as briskly as elderly men 
 walk, towards the garden entrance. Sorry was 
 I to leave so abruptly so sweet a place, so old 
 and so dear to me; sorry to have disturbed it 
 with controversy instead of drinking in its calm. 
 When we reached the lofty avenue, from 
 which I entered, Richard shook my hand, and 
 wished me God-speed, 
 
 "portaque emittit eburna". 
 
116 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS: 
 INFLUENCE. 
 
 Taking Influence and Law to be the two great 
 principles of Government, it is plain that, histo- 
 rically speaking, Influence comes first, and then 
 Law. Thus Orpheus preceded Lycurgus and 
 Solon. Thus Deioces the Mede laid the foun- 
 dations of his power in his personal reputation 
 for justice, and then established it in the seven 
 walls by which he surrounded himself in Ecba- 
 tana. First we have the " virum pietate gra- 
 vem", whose word "rules the spirits and soothes 
 the breasts '' of the multitude ; — or the warrior ; — 
 or the mythologist and bard; — then follow at 
 length the dynasty and constitution. Such is 
 the history of society: it begins in the poet, 
 and ends in the policeman. 
 
 Universities are instances of the same course : 
 they begin in Influence, they end in System. 
 At first, whatever good they may have done, 
 
INFLUENCE. 117 
 
 lias been the work of persons, of personal exer- 
 tions; of faith, in persons, of personal attach- 
 ments. Their Professors have been a sort of 
 preachers and missionaries, and have not only 
 taught, but have won over or inflamed their 
 hearers. As time has gone on, it has been 
 found out that personal influence does not last 
 for ever; that individuals get past their work, 
 that they die, that they cannot always be de- 
 pended on, that they change ; that, if they are to 
 be the exponents of a University, it will have no 
 abidance, no steadiness ; that it will be great and 
 small again, and will inspire no trust. Accor- 
 dingly, system has of necessity been superadded 
 to individual action; a University has been em- 
 bodied in a constitution, it has exerted authority, 
 it has been protected by rights and privileges, it 
 has enforced discipline, it has developed itself 
 into Colleges, and has admitted Monasteries into 
 its territory. The details of this advance and 
 consummation are of course different in different 
 instances; each University has a career of its 
 own; I have been stating the process in the 
 logical, rather than in the historical order ; but 
 such it has been on the whole, whether in 
 ancient or medieval times. Zeal began, power 
 
118 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 and wisdom completed : private enterprise came 
 first, national or governmental recognition fol- 
 lowed ; first the Greek, then the Macedonian and 
 , Roman; the Athenian created, the Imperialist 
 organized and consolidated. This is the subjecl 
 I am going to enter upon to-day. 
 
 Now as to Athens, I have already shown what 
 it did, and implied what it did not do ; and ] 
 shall proceed to say something more about it. 1 
 have another reason for dwelling on the subject 
 it will lead me to direct attention to certain cha 
 racteristics of Athenian opinion, which are no1 
 only to my immediate purpose, but will form ar 
 introduction to something I should like to saj 
 on a future occasion, if I could grasp my owr 
 thoughts, about the philosophical sentiments o: 
 the present age, their drift, and their bearing or 
 a University. This is another matter; but ] 
 mention it, because it is one out of several rea 
 sons which will set me on a course in which ] 
 shall seem to be ranging very wide of my mark 
 while all the time I shall have a meaning in m\ 
 wanderings. 
 
 Beginning then the subject very far back, J 
 observe that the guide of life* implanted in ou: 
 
INFLUENCE. 119 
 
 nature, discriminating right from wrong, and 
 investing right with authority and sway, is our 
 Conscience, which Revelation does but enligh- 
 ten, strengthen, and refine. Coming from one 
 and the same Author, these internal and exter- 
 nal monitors of course recognize and bear witness 
 to each other ; Nature warrants without anticipa- 
 ting the Supernatural, and the Supernatural 
 completes without superseding Nature. Such 
 is the divine order of things; but man, — not 
 being divine, nor over partial to so stern a 
 reprover within his breast, yet seeing too the 
 necessity of some rule or other, some common 
 standard of conduct, if Society is to be kept 
 together, and the children of Adam to be saved 
 from setting up each for himself with every one 
 else his foe, — as soon as he has secured for him- 
 self some little cultivation of intellect, looks about 
 him how he can -manage to dispense with Con- 
 science, and find some other principle to do its 
 work. The most plausible and obvious and ordi- 
 nary of these expedients, is the Law of the State, 
 human law ; the more plausible and ordinary, be- 
 cause it really comes to us with a divine sanc- 
 tion, and necessarily has a place in every society 
 or community of men. Accordingly it is very 
 
120 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS'. 
 
 widely used instead of Conscience, as but a little 
 experience of life will show us ; " the law says 
 this"; " would you have me go against the law?" 
 is considered an unanswerable argument in every 
 case ; and, when the two come into collision, it 
 follows of course that Conscience is to give way, 
 and the Law to prevail. 
 
 Another substitute for Conscience is the rule 
 of Expediency : Conscience is pronounced super- 
 annuated, and retires on a pension whenever a 
 people is so far advanced in illumination, as to 
 perceive that right and wrong can to a certain 
 extent be measured and determined by the 
 useful on the one hand, and by the hurtful on 
 the other; according to the maxim, which 
 embodies this principle, that " honesty is the 
 best policy". 
 
 Another substitute of a more refined character 
 is, the principle of Beauty :-^it is maintained 
 that the Beautiful and the Virtuous mean the 
 same thing, and are convertible terms. Ac- 
 cordingly Conscience is found out to be but 
 slavish ; and a fine taste, an exquisite sense of the 
 decorous, the graceful, and the appropriate, this 
 is to be our true guide for ordering our mind and 
 our conduct, and bringing the whole man into 
 
INFLUENCE. 121 
 
 shape. These are great sophisms, it' is plain; 
 for, true though it be, that virtue is always 
 expedient, always fair, it does not therefore 
 follow that every thing which is expedient, and 
 every thing which is fair, is virtuous. A pesti- 
 lence is an evil, yet may have its undeniable 
 uses; and war, " glorious war", is an evil, yet 
 an army is a very beautiful object to look upon ; 
 and what holds in these cases, may hold in 
 others ; so that it is not very safe or logical to 
 say that Utility and Beauty are guarantees for 
 Virtue. 
 
 However, there are these three principles 
 of conduct, which may be plausibly made use of 
 in order to dispense with Conscience ; viz., Law, 
 Expedience, and Propriety; and (at length to 
 come to our point) the Athenians chose the last 
 of them, as became so exquisite a people, and 
 professed to practise virtue on no inferior con- 
 sideration, but simply because it was so praise- 
 worthy, so noble, and so fair. Not that they 
 discarded Law, not that they had not an eye to 
 their interest ; but they boasted that " grass- 
 hoppers" like them, old of race and pure of 
 blood, could be influenced in their conduct by 
 nothing short of a fine and delicate taste, a 
 
122 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 sense of honour,' and an elevated, aspiring spirit. 
 Their model man, like the pattern of chivalry, 
 was a gentleman, KaXoKayaOoQ ; — a word* which 
 has hardly its equivalent in the sterner lan- 
 guage of Rome, where, on the contrary, 
 
 Vir bonus est quis ? 
 Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat. 
 
 For the Romans deified Law, as the Athenians 
 deified the Beautiful. 
 
 This being the state of the case, Athens was 
 in truth a ready-made University. The present 
 age, indeed, with that solidity of mind for 
 which it is indebted to Christianity, and that 
 practical character which has ever been the 
 peculiarity of the West, would bargain that the 
 True and Serviceable as well as the Beautiful 
 should be made the aim of the Academic in- 
 tellect and the business of a University; — of 
 course, — but the present age, and every age, 
 will bargain for many things in its schools which 
 Athens had not, when once we set about sum- 
 ming up her desiderata. Let us take her as she 
 was, and I say, that a people so speculative, so 
 imaginative, which throve upon mental activity 
 as other races upon repose, and to whom it 
 
INFLUENCE. 123 
 
 came as natural to think, as to a barbarian to 
 smoke or to sleep, suck a people were in a true 
 sense born teachers, and merely to live among 
 them was a cultivation of mind. Hence they 
 suddenly took their place in this capacity from 
 the time that they had emancipated themselves 
 from the aristocratic families, with which their 
 history opens. We talk of the " republic of 
 letters", because thought is free, and minds of 
 whatever rank in life are on a level. The 
 Athenians felt that a democracy was but the 
 political expression of an intellectual isonomy, 
 and, when they had obtained it, and taken the 
 Beautiful for their Sovereign, instead of Pisis- 
 tratus, they came forth as the civilizers, not of 
 Greece only, but of the European world. 
 
 A century had not passed from the expulsion 
 of the Pisistratidffi, when Pericles was able to 
 call Athens the " schoolmistress" of Greece. 
 And ere it had well run out, upon her mis- 
 fortunes in Sicily, the old Syracusan, who 
 pleaded in behalf of her citizens, conjured his 
 fellow-citizens, "in that they had the gift of 
 Reason", to have mercy upon those, who had 
 opened their land, as " a common school", to all 
 men; and he asks, "To what foreign land will 
 
124 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 men betake themselves for liberal education, if 
 Athens be destroyed ?" And the story is well 
 known, when, in spite of his generous attempt, 
 the Athenian prisoners were set to work in the 
 stone-quarries, how that those who could recite 
 passages from Euripides, found this accomplish- 
 ment serve them instead of ransom, for their 
 liberation. Such was Athens on the coast of 
 the iEgean and in the Mediterranean; and it 
 was hardly more than the next generation, when 
 her civilization was conveyed by means of the 
 conquests of Alexander into the very heart of 
 further Asia, and was the life of the Greek 
 kingdom which he founded in Bactriana. She 
 became the centre of a vast intellectual propa- 
 gandism, and had in her hands the spell of a 
 more wonderful influence than that semi-bar- 
 barous power which first conquered and then 
 used her. Wherever the Macedonian phalanx 
 held its ground, thither came a colony of her 
 philosophers; Asia Minor and Syria were co- 
 vered with her schools, while in Alexandria her 
 children, Theophrastus and Demetriusj became 
 the life of the great literary undertakings which 
 have immortalized the name of the Ptolemies. 
 Such was the effect of that peculiar demo- 
 
INFLUENCE. 125 
 
 cracy, in which Pericles glories in his celebrated 
 Funeral Oration. It made Athens in the event 
 politically weak, but it was her strength as an 
 ecumenical teacher and civilizer. The love of 
 the Beautiful will not conquer the world, but, 
 like the voice of Orpheus, it may for a while 
 carry it away captive. Such is that " divine 
 Philosophy", in the poet's words, 
 
 " Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
 But musical, as is Apollo's lute, 
 And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns". 
 
 The Athenians then exercised Influence by 
 discarding Law. It was their boast that they 
 had found out the art of living well and happily, 
 without working for it. They professed to do 
 right, not from servile feeling, not because they 
 were obliged, not from fear of command, not 
 from belief of the unseen, but because it was 
 their nature, because it was so truly pleasant, 
 because it was such a luxury to do it. Their 
 political bond was good will and generous sen- 
 timent. They were loyal citizens, active, hardy, 
 brave, munificent, from their very love of what 
 was high, and because the virtuous was the 
 enjoyable, and the enjoyable was the virtuous. 
 
126 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 They regulated themselves by music, and so 
 danced though life. 
 
 Thus, according to Pericles, while, in private 
 and personal matters, each Athenian was suf- 
 fered to please himself, without any tyrannous 
 public opinion to make him feel uncomfortable, 
 the same freedom of will did but unite the peo- 
 ple, one and all, in concerns of national interest, 
 because obedience to the magistrates and the 
 laws was with them a sort of passion, to shrink 
 from dishonour an instinct, and to repress 
 injustice an indulgence. They could be splen- 
 did in their feasts and spectacles without extra- 
 vagance, because the crowds whom they at- 
 tracted from abroad, repaid them for the outlay; 
 and such large hospitality did but cherish in 
 them a frank, unsuspicious, and courageous 
 spirit, which better protected them than a pile 
 of state secrets and exclusive laws. Nor did 
 this joyous mode of life relax them, as it might 
 relax a less noble race, for they were warlike 
 without effort, and expert without training, and 
 rich in resources by the gift of nature, and, after 
 their fill of pleasure, they were only more gallant 
 in the field, and more patient and enduring on 
 the march. They cultivated the fine arts with 
 
INFLUENCE. 127 
 
 too much taste to be expensive, and they studied 
 the sciences with too much point to become 
 effeminate ; debate did not blunt their energy, 
 nor foresight of danger chill their daring ; but, 
 as their tragic poet expresses it, " the loves 
 were the attendants upon wisdom, and had a 
 share in the acts of every virtue''. 
 
 Such was the Athenian according i;o his own 
 account of himself, and very beautiful is the 
 picture ; very original and attractive ; very 
 suitable, certainly, to a personage, who was to 
 to be the world-wide Professor of the humanities 
 and the philosophic Missionary of mankind. 
 Suitable, if he could be just what I have been 
 depicting him, and nothing besides ; but, alas ! 
 when we attentively consider what the above 
 conception was likely in fact to turn out, as 
 soon as it came to be carried into execution, 
 we shall feel no surprise, on passing from 
 panegyric to experience, that he looks so 
 different in history, from what he promised to 
 be in the glowing periods of the orator. The 
 case, as we have already remarked, is very sim- 
 ple : if beautifulness was all that was needed to 
 make a thing right, then nothing graceful and 
 pleasant could be wrong ; and, since there is 
 
128 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 no abstract idea but admits of being embel- 
 lished and dressed up, and made pleasant and 
 graceful, it followed as a matter of course that 
 any thing whatever is permissible. One sees at 
 once, that, taking men as they are, the love of 
 the Beautiful would be nothing short of the love 
 of the Sensual ; nor was the anticipation falsified 
 by the event : for in Athens genius and volup- 
 tuousness ever went hand in hand, and their 
 literature, as it has come down to us, is no 
 sample or measure of their mode of living. 
 
 Their literature indeed is of that serene 
 and severe beauty, which has ever been as- 
 sociated with the word "classical" ; and it is grave 
 and profound enough for the ancient Fathers to 
 have considered it a preparation for the gospel ; 
 but we are concerned, not with the writings, 
 but with the social life of Athens. I have been 
 speaking of her as a living body, as an in- 
 tellectual home, as the pattern school of the 
 Professorial system ; and we now see where the 
 hitch lay. She was of far too fine and dainty a 
 nature for the wear and tear of life ; — she needed 
 to be " of sterner stuff", if she was to aspire to 
 the charge of the young and inexperienced. 
 Not all the zeal of the teacher and devotion of 
 
INFLUENCE. 129 
 
 the pupil, the thirst of giving and receiving, the 
 exuberance of demand and supply, will avail for 
 a University, unless some provision is made for 
 the maintenance of authority and of discipline, 
 unless the terrors of the Law are added to the 
 persuasives of the Beautiful. Influence was not 
 enough without command. This too is the 
 reason why Athens, with all her high gifts, 
 was at fault, not only as a University, but as 
 an Empire. She was proud, indeed, of her 
 imperial sway, in the season of her power, and 
 ambitious of its extension ; but, in matter of fact, 
 she was as ill adapted to reign in the cities of 
 the earth, as to rule in its schools. 
 
 Thou couldst a people raise, but couldst not rule. 
 
 In this world no one rules by mere love ; if you 
 are but amiable, you are no hero ; to be power- 
 ful, you must be strong, and to have domi- 
 nion you must have a genius for organizing. 
 Macedon and Rome were, as in politics, so in 
 literature, the necessary complement of Athens. 
 
 Yet there is something so winning in that 
 idea of Athenian life, which Pericles sets before 
 us, that, acknowledging, as, alas! I must ac- 
 knowledge, that it was inseparable from the 
 
130 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 gravest disorders, in this world as it is, and much 
 more in the pagan world, and that at best it is 
 only ephemeral, if attempted, still, since I am 
 now going to bid farewell to Athens and her 
 schools, I am not sorry to be able to pay her some 
 sort of compliment in parting. I think, then, her 
 great orators have put to her credit a beautiful 
 idea, which, though not really fulfilled in her, 
 has literally and unequivocally been realized 
 within the territory of Christianity. I am not 
 speaking of course of the genius of the Athe- 
 nians, which was peculiar to themselves, nor of 
 those manifold gifts in detail, which have made 
 them the wonder of the world, but of that pror 
 fession of philosophical democracy, so original 
 and so refined in its idea, of that grace, freedom, 
 nobleness, and liberality of daily life, of which 
 Pericles, in his oration, is specially enamoured ; 
 and, with my tenderness, on the one hand, for 
 Athens (little as I love the radical Greek 
 character), and my devotion to a particular 
 Catholic Institution on the other, I have ever 
 thought I could trace a certain resemblance 
 between Athens, as contrasted with Rome, and 
 the Oratory of St. Philip, as viewed in contrast 
 with the Religious Orders. 
 
INFLUENCE. 131 
 
 All the creations of Holy Church have their 
 own excellence and do their own service ; each 
 is perfect in its kind, nor can any one be mea- 
 sured against another in the way of rivalry or an- 
 tagonism. We may admire one of them without 
 disparaging the rest ; again, we may specify its 
 characteristic gift, without implying thereby 
 that it has not other gifts also. Whereas then, 
 to take up the language which my friend 
 Richard has put into my mouth, there are two 
 great principles of action in human affairs, 
 Influence and System, some ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutions are based upon System, and others upon 
 Influence. Which are those which flourish and 
 fulfil their mission by means of System? Evi- 
 dently the Regular Bodies, as the very word 
 " regular" implies ; they are great, they are 
 famous, they spread, they do exploits, in the 
 strength of their Rule. They are of the nature 
 of imperial states. Ancient Rome, for instance, 
 had the talent of organization ; and she formed 
 a political framework to unite to herself and to 
 each other the countries which she successively 
 conquered. She sent out her legions all over 
 the earth to secure and to govern it. She 
 created establishments which were fitted to last 
 
132 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 for ever ; she brought together a hundred nations 
 into one, and she moulded Europe on a model, 
 which it retains even now ; — and this not by a 
 sentiment or an imagination, but by wisdom of 
 policy, and the iron hand of Law. Establish- 
 ment is the very idea, which the name of 
 Imperial Rome suggests. Athens, on the other 
 hand, was as fertile, indeed, in schools, as Rome 
 in military successes and political institutions; 
 she was as metropolitan a city, and as frequented 
 a capital, as Rome ; she drew the world to her, 
 she sent her literature into the world ; — but still 
 men came and went, in and out, without con- 
 straint; and her preachers went to and fro, as 
 they pleased ; she sent out her missions by 
 reason of her energy of intellect, and men 
 came on pilgrimage to her from- their love for 
 philosophy. 
 
 Observe, I am all along directing attention, 
 not to the genius of Athens, which belonged to 
 her nature, but to what is separable from her, 
 her method and her instruments. I repeat, that, 
 contrariwise to Rome, it was the method of 
 Influence : it was the absence of rule, it was 
 the action of personality, the intercourse of 
 soul with soul, the play of mind upon mind, 4 
 
INFLUENCE. 133 
 
 it was an admirable spontaneous force, which 
 kept the schools of Athens going, and made 
 the pulses of foreign intellects keep time with 
 hers. 
 
 Now, I say, if there be an Institution in the 
 Catholic Church, which in this point of view 
 has caught the idea of this great heathen precur- 
 sor of the Truth, and has made that idea Chris- 
 tian,— if it proceeds from one who has even 
 gained for himself the title of the " Amabile 
 Santo", — who has placed the noblest aims before 
 his children, yet withal the freest course ; who 
 always drew them to their duty, instead of 
 commanding, and brought them on to perform 
 before they had promised ; who made it a man's 
 praise that he " potuit transgredi, et non est 
 transgressus, facere mala, et non fecit" ; who in 
 his humility had no intention of forming any 
 congregation at all, but had formed it before he 
 knew it, from the beauty and the fascination of 
 his own saintliness; and then, when he was 
 obliged to recognize it and put it into shape, 
 shrank from the severity of the Regular, would 
 have nothing to say to vows, and forbade pro- 
 pagation and dominion; whose houses stand, 
 like Greek colonies, independent of each other 
 
 ffi^ 
 
134 ATHENIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 and complete in themselves ; whose subjects in 
 those several houses are allowed, like Athenian 
 citizens, freely to cultivate their respective gifts 
 and to follow out their own mission ; whose one 
 rule is love, and whose one weapon influence ; — 
 I say, if all this is true of a certain Congregation 
 in the Church, and if it so happens that that 
 Congregation, in the person of one of its mem- 
 bers, finds itself at the present moment in con- 
 tact with the preparatory movements of the 
 establishment of a great University, then surely 
 I may trust, without fancifulness and without 
 impertinence, that there is a providential fitness 
 discernible in the circumstance of the tradi- 
 tions of that Congregation flowing in upon 
 the first agitation of that design; and, though 
 to frame, to organize, and to consolidate, be the 
 imperial gift of St. Dominic or St. Ignatius, and 
 beyond his range, yet a son of St. Philip Neri 
 may aspire without presumption to the prelimi- 
 nary task of breaking the ground and clearing 
 the foundations of the Future, of introducing 
 the great idea into men's minds, and making 
 them understand it, and love it, and have hope 
 in it, and have faith in it, and show zeal for it ; — 
 of bringing many intellects to work together for 
 
INFLUENCE. 135 
 
 it, and of teaching them to understand each other, 
 and bear with each other, and go on together, 
 not so much by rule, as by mutual kind feeling 
 and a common devotion, — after the conception 
 and in the spirit of that memorable people, who, 
 though they could bring nothing to perfection, 
 were great (over and above their supreme 
 originality) in exciting a general interest, and 
 in creating an elevated taste, in the various 
 subject-matters of art, science, and philosophy. 
 
 But here I am only in the middle of my 
 subject, and at the end of my paper; so I must 
 reserve the rest of what I have to say for the 
 next chapter. 
 
136 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS: 
 DISCIPLINE. 
 
 Looking at Athens as the preacher and mis- 
 sionary of Letters, and as enlisting the whole 
 Greek race in her work, who is not struck with 
 admiration at the range and multiplicity of her 
 operations? At first, the Ionian and iEolian 
 cities are the principal scene of her activity; 
 hut, if we look on a century or two, we shall 
 find that she forms the intellect of the colonies 
 of Sicily and Magna Grascia, has penetrated 
 Italy, and is shedding the light of philosophy 
 and awakening thought in the cities of Gaul by 
 means of Marseilles, and along the coast-of Africa 
 by means of Cyrene. She has sailed up both 
 sides of the Euxine, and deposited her literary 
 wares where she stopped, as traders nowadays 
 leave samples of foreign merchandize, or as 
 war steamers land muskets and ammunition, or as 
 agents for religious societies drop their tracts or 
 
DISCIPLINE. 137 
 
 scatter their versions. The whole of Asia Minor 
 and Syria resounds with her teaching ; the bar- 
 barians of Parthia are quoting fragments of her 
 tragedians; Greek manners are introduced and 
 perpetuated on the Hydaspes and Acesines; 
 Greek coins, lately come to light, are struck in 
 the capital of Bactriana ; and so charged is the 
 moral atmosphere of the East with Greek civili- 
 zation, that, down to this day, those tribes are 
 said to show to most advantage, which can claim 
 relation of place or kin with Greek colonies 
 established there above two thousand years ago. 
 But there is one city, which, though Greece 
 and Athens have no longer any memorial in it, 
 has in this point of view a claim, beyond the 
 rest, upon our attention ; and that, not only from 
 its Greek origin, and the memorable name 
 which it bears, but because it introduces us to a 
 new state of things, and is the record of an 
 advance in the history of the education of the 
 intellect; — I mean, Alexandria. 
 
 Alexander, if we must call him a Greek, 
 which the Greeks themselves would not permit, 
 did that which no Greek had done before ; or 
 rather, because he was no thorough Greek, 
 though so nearly a Greek by descent and birth- 
 
138 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 place and" by tastes, he was able, without sacri- 
 ficing what Greece was, to show himself to be 
 what Greece was not. The creator of a wide 
 empire, he had talents for organization and 
 administration, which were foreign to the Athe- 
 nian mind, and which were absolutely neces- 
 sary if its mission was to be carried out. The 
 picture, which history presents of Alexander, 
 is as beautiful as it is romantic. It is not only 
 the history of a youth of twenty, pursuing con- 
 quests so vast, that at the end of a few years he 
 had to weep that there was no second world to 
 subjugate, but it is that of a beneficent prince, 
 civilizing, as he went along, both by his political 
 institutions and by his patronage of science. It 
 is this union of an energetic devotion to letters 
 with a genius for sovereignty, which places him 
 in contrast both to Greek and Roman. Caesar, 
 with all his cultivation of mind, did not conquer 
 to civilize, any more than Hannibal ; he must 
 add Augustus to himself, before he can be an 
 Alexander. The royal pupil of Aristotle and 
 Callisthenes started, where aspiring statesmen or 
 generals end ; he professed to be more ambitious 
 of a name for knowledge than for power, and 
 he paid a graceful homage to the city of in- 
 
DISCIPLINE. 139 
 
 tellect by confessing, when he was in India, 
 that he was doing his great acts to gain the im- 
 mortal praise of the Athenians. The classic 
 poets and philosophers were his recreation; he 
 preferred the contest of song to the palestra ; of 
 medicine he had more than a theoretical know- 
 ledge ; and his ear for music was so fine, that 
 Drjden's celebrated Ode, legendary as it may be, 
 only does justice to its sensitiveness. He was 
 either expert in fostering, or quick in detecting, 
 the literary tastes of those around him ; and two 
 of his generals have left behind them a literary 
 fame. Eumenes and Ptolemy, after his death, en- 
 gaged in the honourable rivalry, the one in Asia 
 Minor, the other in Egypt, of investing the 
 dynasties which they respectively founded, with 
 the patronage of learning and of its professors. 
 
 Ptolemy, upon whom, on Alexander's death, 
 devolved the kingdom of Egypt, supplies us 
 with the first great instance of what may be 
 called the establishment of Letters. He and 
 Eumenes may be considered the first founders of 
 public libraries. • Some authors indeed allude to 
 the Egyptian king, Osynianduas, and others 
 point to Pisistratus, as having created a pre- 
 cedent for their imitation. It is difficult to say 
 
 Bi-r 
 
140 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 what these pretensions are exactly worth: or 
 how far those personages are entitled to more 
 than the merit of a conception, which obviously 
 would occur to various minds before it was 
 actually accomplished. There is more reason 
 for referring it to Aristotle, who, from his rela- 
 tion to Alexander, may be considered as the 
 head of the Macedonian literary movement, and 
 whose books, together with those of his rich 
 disciple, Theophrastus, ultimately came into the 
 possession of the Ptolemies; but Aristotle's 
 idea, to whatever extent he realized it, was 
 carried out by the two Macedonian dynasties 
 with a magnificence of execution, which kings 
 alone could project, and a succession of ages 
 Asecure. For the first time, a great system was 
 set on foot for collecting together in one, and 
 handing down to posterity, the oracles of the 
 world's wisdom. In the reign of the second 
 Ptolemy the number of volumes rescued from 
 destruction, and housed in the Alexandrian 
 Library, amounted to 100,000, as volumes were 
 then formed; in course of time it grew to 
 400,000; and a second collection was com- 
 menced, which at length rose to 300,000, 
 making, with the former, a sum total of 
 
 
DISCIPLINE. 141 
 
 700,000 volumes. During Caesar's military de- 
 fence of Alexandria, the former of these collec- 
 tions was unfortunately burned; but, in com- 
 pensation, the library received the 200,000 
 volumes of the rival collection of the kings of 
 Pergamus, the gift of Antony to Cleopatra. 
 After lasting nearly a thousand years, this 
 noblest of dynastic monuments was deliberately 
 burned, as all the world knows, by the Saracens, 
 on their becoming masters of Alexandria. 
 
 A library, however, was only one of two 
 great conceptions brought into execution by the 
 first Ptolemy ; and as the first was the embalm- 
 ing of dead genius, so the second' was the 
 endowment of living. Here again the Egyptian 
 priests may be said in a certain sense to have 
 preceded him ; moreover, in Athens itself there 
 had grown up a custom of maintaining in the 
 Prytaneum at the public cost, or of pensioning, 
 those who had deserved well of the state, nay, 
 their children also. This had been the privilege, 
 for instance, conferred on the family of the 
 physician Hippocrates, for his medical services 
 at the time of the plague; but I suppose the 
 provision of a home or residence was never 
 contemplated in its idea. But as regards litera- 
 
142 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN. SCHOOLS. 
 
 ture itself, to receive money for teaching, was con- 
 sidered to degrade it to an illiberal purpose, as 
 had been felt in the instance of the Sophists; 
 even the Pythian prize for verse, though at first 
 gold or silver, became nothing more than a 
 crown of leaves, as soon as a sufficient com- 
 petition was secured. Kings, indeed, might la- 
 vish precious gifts upon the philosophers or 
 poets whom they kept about them; but such 
 practices did not proceed on rule or by engage- 
 ment, nor imply any salary settled on the 
 objects of their bounty. Ptolemy, however,, 
 prompted, or at least encouraged, by the cele- 
 brated Demetrius of Phalerus, put into execution 
 a plan for the formal endowment of literature 
 and science. The fact indeed of the possession 
 of an immense library seemed sufficient to render' 
 Alexandria a University ; for what could be a 
 greater attraction to the students of all lands, 
 than the opportunity afforded them of intellec- 
 tual converse, not only with the living, but with 
 the dead, with all who had any where at any time 
 thrown light upon any subject of inquiry? But 
 Ptolemy determined that his teachers of know- 
 ledge should be as stationary and as permanent 
 as his books; so resolving to make Alexandria 
 
DISCIPLINE. 143 
 
 the seat of a Studium Generate, he founded a 
 College for its domicile, and endowed that 
 College with ample revenues. 
 
 Here, I consider, he did more than has been 
 commonly done, till modern times. It requires 
 considerable knowledge of medieval Universities 
 to be entitled to give an opinion ; as to Germany, 
 for instance, or Poland, or Spain ; but, as far as I 
 have a right to speak, such a measure has been 
 rare down to the sixteenth century, as well as 
 before Ptolemy. The University of Toulouse, I 
 think, was founded in a College ; so was Orleans ; 
 so has been the Protestant University of Dublin ; 
 other Universities have yearly salaries from the 
 Government ; but even the University of Oxford 
 to this day, viewed as a University, is a poor body. 
 Its Professors have for the most part a scanty en- 
 dowment and no residence ; and it subsists 
 mainly on fees received from year to year from 
 its members. Such too, I believe, is the case 
 with the University of Cambridge. The Uni- 
 versity founded in Dublin in John the Twenty- 
 second's time, fell for lack of funds. The Uni- 
 versity of Paris could not be very wealthy, even 
 in the ninth century of its existence, or it would 
 not have found it necessary to sell its beautiful 
 
144 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Park or Pratum. As for ourselves here, it is 
 commonly understood, that we are starting with 
 ample means already, while large contributions 
 are still expected ; a sum equal perhaps to a third 
 of what has already been collected is to be 
 added to it from the United States ; as to Ireland 
 herself, the overflowing, almost miraculous libe- 
 rality of her poorest classes makes no anticipation 
 of their prospective contributions extravagant. 
 Well, any how, if money made a University, we 
 might expect ours to last as long as the Ptole- 
 mies' ; and, I suppose, there is no one who would 
 not be content that an institution, which he 
 helped to found, should live through a thousand 
 years. 
 
 But to return to the Alexandrian College. It 
 was called the Museum, — a name since appro- 
 priated to another institution connected with the 
 seats of science. Its situation affords an additi- 
 onal instance in corroboration of remarks I have 
 already made upon the sites of Universities. 
 There was a quarter of the city so distinct from 
 the rest in Alexandria, that it is sometimes 
 spoken of as a suburb. It was pleasantly situ- 
 ated on the water's edge, and had been set aside 
 for ornamental buildings, and was traversed by 
 
DISCIPLINE. 145 
 
 groves of trees. Here stood the royal palace, 
 here the theatre and amphitheatre; here the 
 gymnasia and stadium; here the famous Sera- 
 peum. And here it was, close upon the Port, 
 that Ptolemy placed his Library and College. 
 As might be supposed, the building was worthy 
 of its purpose ; a noble portico stretched along 
 its front, for exercise or conversation, and opened 
 upon the public rooms devoted to disputations 
 and lectures. A certain number of Professors 
 were lodged within the precincts, and a hand- 
 some hall, or refectory, was provided for the 
 common meal. The Prefect of the house was a 
 priest, whose appointment lay with the govern- 
 ment. Over the Library a dignified person 
 presided, who, if his jurisdiction extended to 
 the Museum also, might somewhat answer to a 
 medieval or modern Chancellor; the first of 
 these functionaries being the celebrated Athe- 
 nian who had so much to do with the original 
 design. As to the Professors, so liberal was 
 their maintenance, that a philosopher of the 
 very age of the first foundation called the place 
 a "bread basket", or a "bird coop"; yet, in 
 spite of accidental exceptions, so careful on the 
 
 whole was their selection, that even six hun- 
 
 10 
 
146 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 dred years afterwards, Ammianus describes the 
 Museum under the title of " the lasting abode of 
 distinguished men". Philostratus, too, about a 
 century before, calls it " a table gathering to- 
 gether celebrated men" : a phrase which merits 
 attention, as testifying both to the high character 
 of the Professors, and to the means by which 
 they were secured. In some cases, at least, they 
 were chosen by what is now called concursus, 
 in which the native Egyptians are said sometimes 
 to have surpassed the Greeks. We read too 
 of literary games or contests, apparently of the 
 same nature. As time went on, new Colleges 
 were added to the original Museum; of which 
 one was a foundation of the Emperor Claudius, 
 and called after his name. 
 
 It cannot be thought that the high reputation 
 of these foundations would have been main- 
 tained, unless Ptolemy had looked beyond 
 Egypt for occupants of his chairs; and indeed 
 he got together the best men, wherever he could 
 find them. On these he heaped wealth and 
 privileges, and so complete was their naturali- 
 sation in their adopted country, that they lost 
 their usual surnames, drawn from their place of 
 birth, and, instead of being called, for instance, 
 
DISCIPLINE. 147 
 
 Apion of Oasis, or Aristarchus of Samothracia, 
 or Dionysius of Thrace, received each simply 
 the title of " the Alexandrian". Thus Clement 
 of Alexandria, the learned father of the Church, 
 was a native of Athens. 
 
 A diversity of teachers secured an abundance 
 of students, " Hither", says Cave, " as to a 
 public emporium of polite literature, congre- 
 gated, from every part of the world, youthful 
 students, and attended the lectures in Gram- 
 mar, Rhetoric, Poetry, Philosophy, Astronomy, 
 Music, Medicine, and other arts and sciences"; 
 and hence proceeded, as it would appear, the 
 great Christian writer? and doctors, Clement, 
 ■whom I have just been mentioning, Origen, 
 Anatolius, and Athanasius. St. Gregory Thau- 
 maturgus, in the third century, may be added ; 
 he came across Asia Elinor and Syria from 
 Pontus, as to a place, says his namesake of 
 Nyssa, " to which young men from all parts 
 gathered together, who were applying them- 
 selves to philosophy". 
 
 As to the subjects taught in the Museum, 
 Cave has already enumerated the principal ; but 
 he has not done justice to the peculiar character 
 of the Alexandrian school. From the time 
 
148 MACEDONIAN AND KOMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 that science got out of the hands of the pure 
 Greeks, into those of a power which had a 
 talent for administration, it became less theore- 
 tical, and bore more distinctly upon definite 
 and tangible objects. The very conception of 
 an endowment is a specimen of this change. 
 Without yielding the palm of subtle speculation 
 to the Greeks, philosophy assumed a more mas- 
 culine and vigorous character. Dreamy theo- 
 rists, indeed, they could also show in still higher 
 perfection than Athens, where there was the 
 guarantee of genius that abstract investigation 
 would never become ridiculous. The Alexan- 
 drian Neo-platonists certainly have incurred the 
 risk of this imputation; yet, Potamo, Annuo- 
 nius, Plotinus, and Hierocles, who are to be 
 numbered among them, with the addition per- 
 haps of Proclus, in spite of the frivolousness 
 and feebleness of their system, have a weight of 
 character, taken together, which would do 
 honour to any school. And the very circum- 
 stance that they originated a new philosophy is 
 no ordinary distinction in the intellectual world: 
 and that it was directly intended to be a rival 
 and refutation of Christianity, while it is no 
 merit certainly in a religious judgment, marks 
 
DISCIPLINE. 149 
 
 the practical character of the Museum even amid 
 its subtleties. So much for their philosophers : 
 among their poets was Apollonius of Rhodes, 
 whose poem on the Argonauts carries with it, 
 in the very fact of its being still extant, the testi- 
 mony of succeeding ages either to its merit, or to 
 its antiquarian importance. Egyptian antiquities 
 were investigated at least by the disciples of the 
 Egyptian Manetho, fragments of whose history 
 are considered to remain; while Carthaginian 
 and Etruscan had a place in the studies of the 
 Claudian College. The Museum was celebra- 
 ted, moreover, for its grammarians ; the work 
 of Hephcestion de Metris still affords matter of 
 thought to a living Professor of Oxford ;* and 
 Aristarchus, like the Athenian Priscian, has 
 almost become the nick-name for a critic. 
 
 Yet, eminent as is the Alexandrian school in 
 these departments of science, its fame rests still 
 more securely upon its proficiency in medicine 
 and mathematics. Among its physicians is the 
 celebrated Galen, who was attracted thither from 
 Pergamus ; and we are told by a writer of the 
 
 *Dr. Gaisford, since dead. For the Alexandrian Gram- 
 marians, vid. Fabric. Bibl. Grsec, t. vi., p. 353. 
 
150 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 fourth century,* that in his time the very fact of 
 a physician having studied at Alexandria, was an 
 evidence of his science which superseded further 
 testimonial. As to mathematics, it is sufficient 
 to say, that, of four great ancient names, on 
 whom the modern science is founded, three came 
 from Alexandria. * Archimedes indeed ' was a 
 Syracusan; but the Museum may boast of 
 Apollonius of Perga, Diophantus, a native 
 Alexandrian, and Euclid, whose country is un- 
 known. Of these three, Euclid's services to 
 geometry are known, if not appreciated, by 
 every school-boy ; Apollonius is the first writer 
 on Conic Sections; and Diophantus the first 
 writer on Algebra. To these illustrious names, 
 may be added, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, to 
 whom astronomy has obligations so conside- 
 rable ; Pappus ; Theon ; and Ptolemy, said 
 to be of Pelusium, whose celebrated system, 
 called after him the Ptolemaic, reigned in the 
 schools till the time of Copernicus, and whose 
 Geography, dealing with facts, not theories, is in 
 repute still. 
 
 Such was the celebrated Sludium or Univer- 
 
 * Ammiamis. 
 
DISCIPLINE. 151 
 
 sity of Alexandria ; for a while, in the course of 
 the third and fourth centuries, it was subject to 
 reverses, principally from war. The whole of 
 the Bruchion, the quarter of the city in which 
 it was situated, was given to the flames ; and, 
 when Hilarion came to Alexandria, the holy 
 hermit, whose rule of life did not suffer him 
 to lodge in cities, took up his lodgment with 
 a few solitaries among the ruins of its edi- 
 fices. The schools, however, and the library 
 continued; the library was reserved for the 
 Caliph Omar's famous judgment; as to the 
 schools, even as late as the twelfth century, the 
 Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, gives us a surprising 
 report of what he found in Alexandria. " Out- 
 side the city", he says, a mode of speaking which 
 agrees with what has been above said about the 
 locality of the Museum, " is the Academy of 
 Aristotle, Alexander's preceptor; a handsome 
 pile of building, which has twenty Colleges, 
 whither students betake themselves from all 
 parts of the world to learn his philosophy. 
 The marble columns divide one College from 
 another". 
 
 Though the Roman schools have more direct 
 
152 MACEDONIAN AND EOMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 bearing on the subsequent rise of the medieval 
 Universities, they are not so exact an antici- 
 pation of its type, as the Alexandrian Museum. 
 They differ from the Museum, as being for the 
 most part, as it would appear, devoted to the 
 education of the very young, without any refe- 
 rence to the advancement of science. No list of 
 writers or discoveries, no local or historical 
 authorities, can be adduced, from the date of 
 Augustus to that of Justinian, to rival the fame 
 of Alexandria ; we hear on the contrary much of 
 the elements of knowledge, the Trhdum and 
 Quadrivium ; and the Law of the Empire provi- 
 ded, and the Theodosian Code has recorded, 
 the discipline necessary for the students. Teach- 
 ing and learning was a department of govern- 
 ment; and schools were set up and professors 
 endowed, just as soldiers were stationed or courts 
 opened, in every great city of the East and 
 West. In Rome itself the seat of education was 
 placed in the Capitol ; ten chairs were appointed 
 for Latin Grammar, ten for Greek; three for 
 Latin Rhetoric, five for Greek; one, some say 
 three, for Philosophy; two or four for Roman 
 Law. Professorships of Medicine were after- 
 wards added. Under Grammar (if St. Gregory's 
 
DISCIPLINE. 153 
 
 account of Athens in Roman times may be ap- 
 plied to the Roman schools generally), were 
 included knowledge of language and metre, cri- 
 ticism, and history. Rome, as might be expec- 
 ted, and Carthage, were celebrated for their 
 Latin teaching ; Roman Law is said to have been 
 taught in three cities only, Rome itself, Constan- 
 tinople, and Berytus ; but this probably was the 
 restriction of a later age. 
 
 The study of grammar and geography was 
 commenced at the age of twelve, and apparently 
 at the private school, and was continued till the 
 age of fourteen. Then the youths were sent to 
 the public academy for oratory, philosophy, ma- 
 thematics, and law. The course lasted five 
 years ; and, on entering on their twentieth year, 
 their education was considered complete, and 
 they were sent home. If they studied the law, 
 they were allowed to stay, for instance, in Bery- 
 tus, till their twenty -fifth year; a permission, 
 indeed, which was extended in that city to the 
 students in polite literature, or, as we should now 
 say, in Arts. 
 
 The number of youths, who went up to Rome 
 for the study of the Law, was considerable; 
 chiefly from Africa and Gaul. Originally the 
 
154 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Government had discouraged foreigners in r 
 pairing to the metropolis, from the dangers 
 naturally presented to youth; when their rei 
 dence there became a necessary evil, it content* 
 itself with imposing strict rules of discipline up( 
 them. No youth could obtain admission in 
 the Roman schools, without a certificate sign< 
 by the magistracy of his province. Next, 1 
 presented himself before the Magister Census, i 
 official who was in the department of the Pri 
 fectus Urbis, and who, ^besides his ordinary d 
 ties, acted as Rector of the Academy. Nej 
 his name, city, age, and qualifications we 
 entered in a public register ; and a specificatio 
 moreover, of the studies he proposed to pursu 
 and of the lodging-house where he proposed 
 reside. He was amenable for his conduct to tl 
 Censuales, as if they had been Proctors ; and ] 
 was reminded that the eyes of the world we 
 upon him, that he had a character to maintai 
 and that it was his duty to avoid clubs, of whii 
 the Government was jealous, riotous parties, ai 
 the public shows, which were of daily occurren 
 and of most corrupting tendency. If he w 
 refractory and disgraced himself, he was to 
 publicly flogged, and shipped off at once to 1 
 
DISCIPLINE. 155 
 
 country. Those "who acquitted themselves well, 
 were reported to the Government, and received 
 public appointments. The Professors were un- 
 der the same jurisdiction as the students, and 
 were sometimes made to feel it. 
 
 Of the schools planted through the Empire, 
 the most, considerable were the Gallic and the 
 African, of which the latter had no good reputa- 
 tion, while the Gallic name stood especially 
 high. Marseilles, one of the oldest of the Greek 
 colonies, was the most celebrated of the schools 
 of Gard for learning and for discipline. For this 
 reason, and from its position,- it drew off num- 
 bers, under the Empire, who otherwise would 
 have repaired to Athens. It was here that Agri- 
 cola received his education; " a school", says his 
 biographer, " in which Greek politeness was 
 happily blended and tempered with provincial 
 strictness". The schools of Bourdeaux and 
 Autun also had a high name ; and Rheims re- 
 ceived the title of a new Athens. This appella- 
 tion was also bestowed upon the school of Milan. 
 Besides these countries, respectful mention is 
 made of the schools of Britain. As to Spain, 
 the colonies there established are even called, by 
 one eommentator on the Theodosian code, "lite- 
 
156 MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 rary colonies"; a singular title when Rome is 
 concerned ; and, in fact, a number of writers of 
 reputation came from Spain. Lucan, the Sene- 
 cas, Martial, perhaps Quintilian, Mela, Colu- 
 mella, and Hyginus, are its contribution in the 
 course of a century. 
 
 It will be seen that the Roman schools, as 
 little as Athens itself, answer to the precise idea 
 of a modern University. The Roman schools 
 are for boys, or, at least, adolescentuli: Agricola 
 came to Marseilles when a child, "parvulus". 
 On the other hand, a residence at Athens corre- 
 sponded rather to seeing the world, as in touring 
 and travels, and was often delayed till the season 
 of education was over. Cicero went thither, 
 after his public career had begun, with a view to 
 his health, as well as his oratory. St. Basil had 
 already studied at the schools of Cassarea and 
 Cappadocia. Sometimes young men on cam- 
 paign, when 1 quartered near Athens, took the 
 opportunity of attending her schools. However, 
 the case was the same with Rome, so far as 
 regards 'the departments of jurisprudence and 
 general cultivation. We read both of Rusticus, 
 the correspondent of St. Jerome, and of St. Ger- 
 manus of Auxerre, coming to Rome, after atten- 
 
DISCIPLINE. 157 
 
 ding the Gallic schools ; — the latter expressly in 
 order to study the law ; the former, for the same 
 general purpose which might take a student to 
 Athens, to polish and perfect his style of conver- 
 sation and writing. 
 
 All this suggests to us, what of course must 
 ever he borne in mind, that, while the necessities 
 of human society and the nature of the case are 
 guarantees to us, that such Schools of general 
 education are of a permanent nature, still they 
 will be modified in detail by the circumstances, 
 and marked by the peculiarities, of the age to 
 which they severally belong. 
 
158 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DOWNFALL AND REFUGE OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 THE LOMBARDS. 
 
 There never was, perhaps, in the history of this 
 tumultuous world, prosperity so great, so far- 
 spreading, so lasting, as that which began 
 throughout the vast Empire of Rome, at the 
 time when the Prince of Peace was born into it. 
 Preternatural as was the tyranny of certain of 
 the Cassars, it did not reach the mass of the 
 population; and the reigns of the Five good 
 Emperors, who succeeded them, are proverbs of 
 wise and gentle government. The sole great 
 exception to this universal happiness was the 
 cruel persecution of the Christians ; the sufferings 
 of a whole world fell and were concentrated on 
 them, and the children of heaven were torment- 
 ed, that the sons of men might enjoy their revel. 
 Their Lord, while His shadow brought peace upon 
 earth, foretold that in the -event He came to send 
 "not peace but a sword"; and that sword was 
 
THE LOMBARDS. 159 
 
 first let loose upon His own. " Judgment com- 
 menced with the House of God" ; and though, as 
 time went on, it issued forth from Jerusalem, 
 and began to career round the world and sweep 
 the nations as it travelled on, nevertheless, as if by 
 some paradox of Providence, it seemed still, that 
 truth and wretchedness had " met together", and 
 sin and civilization had "kissed one another". 
 The more the heathens prospered, the more they 
 scorned, hated, and persecuted the true Light and 
 true Peace. They persecuted Him, for the very 
 reason that they had little else to do ; happy and 
 haughty, they saw in Him the sole drawback, the 
 sole exception, the sole hinderance, to a uni- 
 versal, a continual sunshine; they called Him 
 " the enemy of the human race" : and they felt 
 themselves bound, by their loyalty to the glo- 
 rious and immortal memory of their forefathers, 
 by their traditions of state, and their duties 
 towards their children, to trample upon, and, if 
 they could, to stifle that teaching, which was des- 
 tined to be the life and mould of a new world. 
 
 But our immediate subject here is, not Chris- 
 tianity, but the world that passed away; and 
 before it passed, it had, I say, a tranquillity 
 great in proportion to its former commotions. 
 
160 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Ages of trouble terminated in two centuries of 
 peace. The present crust of the earth is said to be 
 the result of a long war of elements, and to have 
 been made so beautiful, so various, so rich, and 
 so useful, by the discipline of revolutions, by 
 earthquake and lightning, by mountains of water 
 and seas of fire ; and so in like manner, it re- 
 quired the events of two thousand years, the 
 multiform fortunes of tribes and populations, the 
 rise and fall of kings, the mutual collision of 
 states, the spread of colonies, the vicissitude and 
 the succession of conquests, and the gradual ad- 
 justment and settlement of innumerous discor- 
 dant ideas and interests, to carry on the human 
 race to unity, and to shape and consolidate the 
 great Roman Power. 
 
 'And when once those unwieldy materials were 
 welded together into one mass, what human 
 force could split them up again? what " hammer 
 of the earth" could shiver at a stroke, a solidity 
 which it had taken ages to form? Who can 
 estimate the strength of a political establishment, 
 which has been the slow birth of time? and 
 what establishment ever equalled Pagan Rome ? 
 Hence has come the proverb, " Rome was not 
 built in a day": it was the portentous solidity of 
 
THE XOiEBAEDS. 161 
 
 its power that forced the gazer back upon an ex- 
 clamation, which was the relief of his astonish- 
 ment, as being his solution of the prodigy . 
 And, when at length it was built, Rome, so long 
 in building, was " Eternal Rome " : it had been 
 done once for all; its being was inconceivable 
 beforehand, and its not being was inconceivable 
 afterwards. It had been a miracle that it was 
 brought to be ; it would take a second miracle that 
 it should cease to be. To remove it from its place 
 was to cast a mountain into the sea. Look at 
 the Palatine Hill, penetrated, traversed, cased 
 with brick-work, till it appears a work of man, 
 not of nature ; run vour eye along the cliffs from 
 Ostia to Terracina, covered with the debris of 
 masonry; gaze around the bay of Baias, whose 
 rocks have been made to serve as the founda- 
 tions and the walls of palaces ; and in those mere 
 remains, lasting to this day, you will have a type 
 of the moral and political strength of the es- 
 tablishments of Rome. Think of the aajie- 
 . ducts making for the imperial city for miles 
 across the plain; think of the straight roads 
 stretching off again from that one centre to the 
 ends of the earth; consider the vast territory 
 
 round about it strewn to this day with countless 
 
 11 
 
162 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 ruins ; follow in your mind its suburbs, exten- 
 tending along its roads, for as much, at least in 
 some directions, as forty miles ; and number up 
 its continuous mass of population, amounting, 
 as grave authors say, to almost six million ; and 
 answer the question, how was Rome ever to be 
 got rid of? why was it not to progress? why 
 was it not to progress for ever ? where was that 
 ancient civilization to end?^- 1 Such were the 
 questionings and anticipations of thoughtful 
 minds, not over loyal or fond of Rome. " The 
 world", says Tertullian, " has more of culti- 
 vation every day, and is better furnished than 
 in times of old. All places are opened up now ; 
 all are familiarly known ; all are scenes of busi- 
 ness. Smiling farms have obliterated the noto- 
 rious wilderness; tillage has tamed the forest 
 land; flocks have put to flight the beasts of 
 prey. Sandy tracts are sown ; rocks are put into 
 shape; marshes are drained. There are more 
 cities now, than there were cottages at one time. 
 Islands are no longer wild ; the crag no longer 
 frightful ; every where there is a home, a popu- 
 lation, a state, and a livelihood". Such was the 
 prosperity, such the promise of progress and 
 permanence, in which the Assyrian, the Persian, 
 
THE LOMBARDS. 163 
 
 the Greek, 'the Macedonian conquests had ter- 
 • minated. 
 
 Education had gone through a similar course 
 of difficulties, and had a place in the prosperous 
 result. First, carried forth upon the wings of 
 genius, and disseminated by the energy of indi- 
 vidual minds, or by the colonizing missions of 
 single cities, knowledge was irregularly extended 
 to and fro over the spacious regions, of which 
 the Mediterranean is the common basin. In- 
 troduced, in course of time, to a more intimate 
 alliance with political power, it received the 
 means, at the date of Alexander and his suc- 
 cessors, both of its cultivation and its propaga- 
 tion. It was formally recognized and endowed 
 under the Ptolemies, and at length became a 
 direct object of the solicitude of the government 
 under the Cassars. It was honoured and dis- 
 pensed in every considerable city of the Empire ; 
 it tempered the political administration of the 
 conquering people ; it civilized the manners of a 
 hundred barbarian conquests ; it gradually re- 
 conciled uncongenial, and associated distant 
 countries, with each other; while it had ever 
 ministered to the fine arts, it now proceeded to 
 subserve the useful. It took in hand the refor- 
 
164 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 mation of the world's religion; it began to 
 harmonize the legends of discordant worships; 
 it purified the mythology by making it symbo- 
 lical ; it interpreted it, and gave it a moral, and 
 explained away its idolatry. It began to dc- 
 velope a system of ethics, it framed a code of 
 laws : what might not be expected of it, as time 
 went on, were it not for that illiberal, unintelli- 
 gible, fanatical, abominable sect of Galileans? 
 If they were allowed to make play, and get 
 power, what might not happen? There again 
 Christians were in the way, as hateful to the 
 philosopher, as to the statesman. Yet truly it 
 was not in this quarter that the peril of civiliza- 
 tion lay : it lay in a very different direction, over 
 against the Empire to the North and North-East, 
 in a black cloud of inexhaustible barbarian 
 populations : and when the storm mounted over- 
 head and broke upon the earth, it was those 
 scorned and detested Galileans, and none but 
 they, the men-haters and god-despisers, who, 
 returning good for evil, housed and lodged the 
 scattered remnants of that world's wisdom, 
 which had so persecuted them, went forth va- 
 liantly to meet the savage destroyer, tamed him 
 without arms, and became the founders of a new 
 
THE LOMBARDS. 165 
 
 and higher civilization. Not a man in Europe 
 now, who talks bravely against the Church, but 
 owes it to the Church, that he can talk at allp 
 
 But what was to be the process, what the 
 method, what the instruments, what the place, 
 for sheltering the treasures of ancient intellect 
 during the convulsion, of bridging over the 
 abyss, and of linking the old world to the new ? 
 In spite of the consolidation of its power, Rome 
 was to go, as all things human go, and vanish 
 for ever. In the words of inspiration, " Great 
 Babylon came in remembrance before God, and 
 every island fled away, and the mountains were 
 not found". All the fury of the elements was 
 directed against it; and, as a continual dropping 
 wears away the stone, so blow after blow, and 
 convulsion after convulsion, sufficed at last to 
 heave up, and hurl down, and smash into frag- 
 ments, the noblest earthly power that ever was. 
 First came the Goth, then the Hun, and then 
 the Lombard. The Goth took possession, but 
 he was of noble nature, and soon lost his barba- 
 rism. The Hun came next ; he was irreclaim- 
 able, but did not stay. The Lombard kept 
 both his savageness and his ground ; he appro- 
 priated to himself the territory, not the civili- 
 
166 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 zation of Italy, fierce as the Hun, and powerful 
 as the Goth, the most tremendous scourge of 
 Heaven. In his dark presence the poor remains 
 of Greek and Roman splendour died away, and 
 the world went more rapidly to ruin, material 
 and moral, than it was advancing from triumph 
 to triumph in the time of Tertullian. Alas! 
 the change between Rome in the hey-day of 
 her pride, and in the agony of her judgment ! , 
 Tertullian writes while she is exalted; Pope 
 Gregory when she is in humiliation. He was 
 delivering homilies upon the Prophet Ezekiel, 
 when the news came to Rome of the advance 
 of the Lombards upon it, and in the course of 
 them he several times burst out into lamenta- 
 tions at the news of miseries, which eventually 
 obliged him to cut short his exposition. 
 
 " Sights and sounds of war", he says, " meet 
 us on every side. The. cities are destroyed ; the 
 military stations broken up ; the land devastated ; 
 the earth depopulated. No one remains in the 
 country ; scarcely any inhabitants in the towns ; 
 yet even the poor remains of human kind are 
 still smitten daily and without intermission. 
 Before our eyes some are carried away captive, 
 some mutilated, some murdered. She herself, 
 
THE LOMBARDS. 167 
 
 who once was mistress of the world, we behold 
 how Rome fares: worn down by manifold and 
 incalculable distresses, the bereavement of citi- 
 zens, the attack of foes, the reiteration of over- 
 throws, where is her senate? where are her 
 people? We, the few survivors, are still the 
 daily prey of the sword and of other innume- 
 rable tribulations. Where are they who in a 
 former day revelled in her glory ? where is their 
 pomp, their pride, their frequent and immoderate 
 joy? Youngsters, young men of the world, con- 
 gregated here from every quarter, where they 
 aimed at a secular advancement. Now no one 
 hastens up to her for preferment ; and the case is 
 the same in other cities also ; some places are laid 
 waste by pestilence, others are depopulated by 
 the sword, others are tormented by famine, and 
 others are swallowed up by earthquakes". 
 
 These words, far from being a rhetorical 
 lament, are but a meagre statement of some 
 of the circumstances of a desolation, in which 
 the elements themselves, as St. Gregory in- 
 timates, as well as the barbarians, took a prin- 
 cipal part. In the dreadful age of that great 
 Pope, a plague spread from the lowlands of 
 Egypt to the Indies on the one hand, along 
 
168 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Africa across to Spain on the other, till, re- 
 versing its course, it reached the eastern extre- 
 mity of Europe. For fifty -two years did it retain 
 possession of the infected atmosphere, and, during 
 three months, five thousand, and at length ten 
 thousand persons, are said to have died daily in 
 Constantinople. Many cities of the East were 
 left without inhabitants ; and in several districts 
 of Italy there were no labourers to attend either 
 harvest or vintage. A succession of earthquakes 
 acoompanied for years this heavy calamity. 
 Constantinople was shaken for above forty days. 
 Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said 
 to have perished in the earthquake of Antioch, 
 crowded, as the city was, with strangers for the fes- 
 tival of the Ascension. Bery tus, the Eastern school 
 of Roman jurisprudence, called, from its literary 
 and scientific importance, the eye of Phoenicia, 
 shared a similar fate. These, however, were but 
 local visitations. Cities are indeed the homes of 
 civilization, but the wide earth, with her hill 
 and dale, open plain and winding valley, is its 
 refuge. The barbarian invaders, spreading over 
 the country, like a flight of locusts, did their 
 best to destroy every fragment of the old world, 
 and every element of revival. Twenty-nine 
 
THE LOMBARDS. 169 
 
 public libraries bad been founded at Rome; 
 but, bad tbese been destroyed, as in Antiocb or 
 Berytus, by earthquakes or by conflagration, 
 yet a large aggregate of books would have still 
 survived. Such collections bad become a fashion 
 and a luxury in the later Empire, and every 
 colony and municipium, every larger temple, 
 every prsetorium, the baths, and the private 
 villas, had their respective libraries. When the 
 ruin swept across the country, and tbese various 
 libraries were destroyed, then the patient monks 
 had begun again, in their quiet dwellings, to 
 bring. together, to arrange, to transcribe, and to 
 catalogue ; but then again the new visitation of 
 the Lombards fell, and Monte Cassino, the 
 famous metropolis of the Benedictines, not to 
 mention monasteries of lesser note, was sacked 
 and destroyed. 
 
 Truly was Christianity revenged on that an- 
 cient civilization for the persecution which it had 
 inflicted on Christianity. Man ceased from the 
 earth, and bis works with him. The arts of life, 
 architecture, engineering, agriculture, were alike 
 brought to nought. The waters were let out 
 over the face of the country ; arable and pasture 
 lands were drowned; land-marks disappeared. 
 
170 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Pools and lakes intercepted the thoroughfares; 
 whole districts became pestilential marshes ; the 
 strong stream, or the abiding morass, sapped and 
 obliterated the very site of cities. Here the 
 mountain torrent cut a channel in the plain; 
 there it elevated ridges across it; elsewhere it 
 disengaged masses of rock and earth in its pre- 
 cipitous passage, and, hurrying them on, left 
 them as islands in the midst of the flood. 
 Forests overspread the land, in rivalry of the 
 waters, and became the habitation of wild 
 animals, of wolves, and even bears. The 
 dwindled race of man lived in scattered huts 
 of mud, where best they might avoid marauder, 
 and pestilence, and inundation; or clung to- 
 gether for mutual defence in cities, where 
 wretched cottages, on the ruins of marble 
 palaces, over-balanced the security of numbers 
 by the frequency of conflagration. 
 
 In such a state of things, the very mention 
 of education was a mockery ; the very aim and 
 effort to exist was occupation enough for mind 
 and body. The heads of the Church bewailed 
 a universal ignorance, which they could not 
 remedy ; it was a great thing that schools re- 
 mained sufficient for clerical education, and this 
 
THE LOMBABDS. 171 
 
 education was only sufficient, as Pope Agatho 
 informs us, to enable them to hand on the tra- 
 ditions of the Fathers, without scientific expo- 
 sition or polemical defence. In that Pope's time, 
 the great Council of Rome, in its letter to the 
 Emperor of the East, who had ashed for Epis- 
 copal legates of correct life and scientific know- 
 ledge of the Scriptures, made answer, that, if 
 by science was meant knowledge of revealed 
 truth, the demand could be supplied; not, if 
 more was required ; " since", continue the Fa- 
 thers, " in these parts, the fury of our various 
 heathen foes is ever breaking out, whether in 
 conflicts, or in inroads and rapine. Hence our 
 life is simply one of anxiety of soul and labour 
 of body ; anxiety, because we are in the midst 
 of the heathen; labour, because the maintenance, 
 which used to come to us as ecclesiastics, is at 
 an end ; so that faith is our only substance, to 
 live in its possession our highest 'glory, to die 
 for it our eternal gain". The very profession of 
 the clergy is the knowledge of letters : if even 
 these lost it, would others retain it in their 
 miseries, to whom it was no duty ? And what 
 then was the hope and prospect of the world in 
 the generations which were to follow? 
 
1 72 DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 
 
 '■' What is coming ? what is to be the end ?" 
 Such was the question, which weighed so 
 heavily upon the august line of Pontiffs, upon 
 whom rested " the solicitude of all the churches", 
 and whose failure in vigilance and decision in 
 that miserable time had been the loss of ancient 
 learning, and the indefinite postponement of 
 new civilization. What could be done for art, 
 science, and philosophy, when towns had been 
 burned up, and country devastated? In such 
 distress, islands, or deserts, or the mountain-top 
 have commonly been the retreat, to which in 
 the last instance the hopes of humanity have 
 been conveyed. Thus the Christian Goths were 
 just then biding their time to revenge themselves 
 on the Saracens in the mountains of Asturias ; so 
 too the monks of the fourth century had preserved 
 the Catholic faith from the tyranny of Arianism 
 in the Egyptian desert ; and so the inhabitants of 
 Lombardy had taken refuge from the Huns in the 
 shallows of the Adriatic. Where should the 
 Steward of the Household deposit the riches, 
 which his predecessors had inherited from Jew 
 and heathen, the things old as well as new, in an 
 age, in which each succeeding century threat- 
 ened them with worse than the centuries which 
 
THE LOMBAEDS. 173 
 
 had gone before ! Pontiff after Pontiff loked out 
 from trie ruins of the Imperial City, which were 
 to be his ever-lasting, ever-restless throne, if per- 
 chance some place was to be found, more 
 tranquil than his own, where the hope of the 
 future might be lodged. They looked over the 
 Earth, towards great cities and far provinces, 
 and whether it was Gregory, or Vitalian, or 
 Agatho, or Leo, their eyes had all been drawn 
 in one direction, and fixed upon one quarter for 
 that purpose, — not to the East, from which the 
 light of knowledge had arisen, nor to the West, 
 whither it had spread, — but to the North. 
 
 High in the region of the North, beyond the 
 just limits of the Roman world, though partly 
 included in its range, so secluded and secure in 
 their sea-encircled domain, that they have been 
 thought to be the fabulous Hesperides, where 
 heroes dwelt in peace, lay two sister islands, 
 — whose names and histories, warned by my 
 diminished space, I must reserve for another 
 chapter. 
 
174 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Whatever were the real causes of the downfall of 
 the ancient civilization, its immediate instrument 
 was the fury of the barbarian invasions, directed 
 again and again against the institutions in which 
 it was embodied. First one came down upon the 
 devoted Empire, and then another; and "that 
 which the palmer worm left, the locust ate ; and 
 what the locust left, the mildew destroyed". 
 Nay, this succession of assaults did not merely 
 carry on and finish the process of destruction, 
 but rather undid the promise and actual prospect 
 of recovery. In the interval between blow and 
 blow, there was a direct tendency to a revival of 
 what had been trodden down, and a restoration 
 of what had been defaced; and that, not only 
 from any such reaction as might take place in 
 the afflicted population itself, when the crisis was 
 over, but from the incipient domestication of the 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 175 
 
 conqueror, and the introduction of a new and 
 vigorous element into the party and cause of 
 civilization. The fierce soldier was vanquished 
 by the captive of his sword and bow. The 
 beauty of the southern climate, the richness of 
 its productions, the material splendour of its 
 cities, the majesty of the imperial organization, 
 the spontaneous precision of a routine adminis- 
 tration, the influence of religion upon the imagi- 
 nation and the affections, antiquity, rule, name, 
 prescription, and territory, presented in visible 
 and recognized forms, — in a word, the conserva- 
 tive power proper to establishments, — awed, 
 overcame, and won, the sensitive and noble 
 savage. " Order is heaven's first law", and bears 
 upon it the impress of divinity ; and it has espe- 
 cial power over those minds which have had 
 least experience of it. The Goth not only took 
 pay, and sought refuge, from the Empire, but, 
 still more, when, instead of dependent, he was 
 lord and master, he found himself absorbed into 
 and assimilated with the civilization, upon which 
 he had violently thrust himself. Had he been 
 left in possession, great revolutions certainly, but 
 not dissolution, would have been the destiny of 
 the social framework; and the tradition of 
 
176 THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 
 
 science and of the arts of life would have been 
 unbroken. 
 
 Thus, in the midst of the awful events which 
 were then in progress, there were intervals of 
 respite and of hope. The day of wrath seemed 
 to be passing away; things began to look up, 
 and the sun was on the point of coming out 
 again. Statesmen, who watched the signs of the 
 times, perhaps began to say, that at last they did 
 think that the worst was over, and that there 
 were good grounds for looking hopefully at the 
 state of affairs. Adolphus, the- successor of Ala- 
 ric, took on himself the obligations of a Roman 
 general, assumed the Roman dress, accepted the 
 Emperor's sister in marriage, and opposed in 
 arms the fiercer barbarians who had overrun 
 Spain. The sons of Theodoric _ the Visigoth 
 were taught Virgil and Roman Law in the 
 schools of Gaul. Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, 
 anxiously preserved the ancient monuments of 
 Rome, and ornamented the cities of Italy with 
 new edifices; he revived agriculture, promoted 
 commerce, and patronized literature. But the 
 Goth was not to retain the booty which the 
 Roman had been obliged to relinquish ; he had 
 soon, in company with his former foe, to repel 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 177 
 
 the Vandal, the Hun, or the Frank ; or, weak- 
 ened from -within, to yield to the younger assail- 
 ants who were to succeed him. Then the whole 
 work of civilization had to begin again, — if 
 indeed there was to be a new beginning; or 
 rather there was not life enough left in its poor 
 remains, to ■vivify the fresh mass of barbarism 
 which fell heavily upon it, or even to save itself 
 from a final extinction. As great Caesar fell, 
 not under one, but under twenty strokes ; so it 
 was only by many a cleaving, many a shattering 
 blow, " scalpri frequentis ictibus et tunsione 
 plurima", that the existing fabric of the old 
 world, to which Cassar, more than any other, 
 had given name and form, was battered down. 
 It was the accumulation, the reiteration of cala- 
 mities, in every quarter and through a long 
 period, by "the rain falling, and the floods 
 coming, and the winds blowing and breaking 
 upon that house", that it fell, " and great was 
 the fall thereof". 
 
 The judgments of God were upon the earth, 
 and "the clouds returned after the rain" ; and, 
 as a thunder cloud careers around the sky, and 
 condenses suddenly here or there, and repeats 
 
 its violence when it seems to have been spent, so 
 
 12 
 
1 78 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 was it with the descent of the North upon the 
 South. There was scarcely a province of the 
 great Empire, but twice or thrice had to sustain 
 attack, invasion, or occupation, from the bar- 
 barian. Till the termination of the reign of 
 the Antonines, for a hundred and fifty years, 
 the long peace continued, which the Prince of 
 Peace brought with Him ; then a fitful century 
 of cloud and sunshine, hope and fear, suspense 
 and affliction, till at length, just at the middle 
 of the third century of our era, the trumpet 
 sounded, and the time of visitation opened. 
 The tremendous period opened in a great pesti- 
 lence, and in an irruption of the barbarians both 
 on the East and on the West. The pestilence 
 lasted for fifteen years; and, though sooner 
 brought to an end than that more awful pesti- 
 lence in St. Gregory's day with which the season 
 of judgment closed, yet in that fifteen years it 
 made its way into every region and city of the 
 Empire. Many cities were emptied; Rome at 
 one time lost 5,000 inhabitants daily, Alexandria 
 lost half her population. As to the barbarians, 
 the Franks in the West descended into Spain; 
 and the Goths on the East into Asia Minor. 
 Asia Minor had had a long peace of three 
 
THE ISLES OF THE KOETH. 1 79 
 
 hundred years, a phenomenon almost solitary 
 in the history of the world, and difficult for the 
 imagination to realize. Its cities were unwalled; 
 military duties had been abolished ; the taxes 
 were employed in the public buildings and the 
 well-being and enjoyments of life; the face of 
 the country was decorated and diversified by the 
 long growth and development of vegetation, by 
 the successive accumulations of art, and by the 
 social memorials and reminiscences of nine peace- 
 ful generations. Its parks and groves, its pa- 
 laces and temples, were removed further by a 
 hundred years from the injuries of warfare, than 
 England is now from the ravages of the Great 
 Rebellion. Down came the Goths from Prussia, 
 Poland, and the Crimea ; they sailed along the 
 Euxine, ravaged Pontus and Bithynia, sacked 
 the wealthy Trebizond and Chalcedon, and 
 burned the imperial Nicaea and Nicomedia, and 
 other great eities of the country ; then fell upon 
 Cyzicus and the cities on the coast, and finally 
 demolished the famous temple of Diana at Ephe- 
 sus, the wonder of the world. Then they passed 
 over to the opposite continent, sacked Athens, 
 and spread dismay and confusion, if not confla- 
 gration, through both upper Greece and the 
 
180 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Peloponnese. At the same solemn era, the 
 Franks fell upon Spain, and ran through the 
 whole of it, destroying flourishing cities, whose 
 ruins lay on the ground for centuries, nor 
 stopped till they had crossed into Africa. 
 
 A second time, at a later date, was Spain laid 
 waste by the Vandals and their confederates, 
 with an utter desolation of its territory. Famine 
 became so. urgent, that human flesh was eaten ; 
 pestilence so rampant, that the wild beasts mul- 
 tiplied among the works of man. Passing on to 
 Africa, these detestable savages cut down the 
 very fruit-trees, as they went, in the wantonness 
 of their fury ; and the inhabitants of the plun- 
 dered cities fled away with such property as 
 they could save beyond sea. A new desolation 
 of Africa took place two centuries later, when 
 the Saracens passed in a contrary direction from 
 Egypt into Spain. 
 
 Nor were the Greek and Asiatic provinces, 
 more than the West, destined to be protected 
 against successive invasions. Scarcely a hun- 
 dred years had passed since the barbarian Goth 
 had swept so fiercely each side of the Egean, 
 when additional blows fell upon Europe and 
 Asia from distinct enemies. In Asia, the Huns 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 181 
 
 poured down upon Cappadocia, Cilicia, and 
 Syria, scaring the pagans of Antioch, and the 
 monks and pilgrims of Palestine, silencing at 
 once the melody of immodest song and of holy 
 chant, till they came to the entrance of Egypt. 
 In Europe it was the Goths again, who descen- 
 ded with fire and sword into Greece, desolated 
 the rich lands of Phocis and Bceotia, destroyed 
 Eleusis and its time-honoured superstitions, and 
 passing into the Peloponnese, burned its cities 
 and enslaved its population. ~~ About the same 
 time the fertile and cultivated tract, stretching 
 from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was devastated 
 by the same reckless invaders, even to the 
 destruction of the brute creation. Sixty years 
 afterwards the same region was overrun by the 
 still more terrible Huns, who sacked as many 
 as seventy cities, and carried off their inhabi- 
 tants. This double scourge, of which Alaric 
 and Attila are the earlier and later represen- 
 tatives, travelled up the country northwards, and 
 thence into Lombardy, pillaging, burning, ex- 
 terminating, as it went along. 
 
 What Huns and Goths were to the South, 
 such were Germans, Huns, and Franks to Gaul. 
 That famous country, though in a less favoured 
 
182 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 climate, was as cultivated and happy as Asia 
 Minor after its three centuries of peace. The 
 banks of the Rhine are said to have been lined 
 with villas and farms ; the schools of Marseilles, 
 Autun, and Bourdeaux, vied with those of the 
 East, and even with that of Athens; opulence 
 had had its civilizing effect upon their manners, 
 and familiarity with the Latin classics upon 
 their native dialect. At the time that Alaric 
 was carrying his ravages from Greece into 
 Lombardy, the fierce Burgundians and other 
 Germans, to the number of 200,000 fighting 
 men, fell upon Gaul; and, to use the words 
 of a well-known historian, " the scene of peace 
 and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert, 
 and the prospect of the smoking ruins could 
 alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the 
 work of man". The barbarian torrent, sweeping 
 away cities and inhabitants, spread from the 
 banks of the Rhine to the Atlantic and the 
 Pyrenees. Fifty years later a great portion of 
 the same region was devastated with like ex- 
 cesses by the Huns; and in the intervals 
 between the two visitations, destructive inroads, 
 or rather permanent occupations, were effected 
 by the Franks and Burgundians. 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 183 
 
 As to Italy, with Rome as a centre, its 
 multiplied miseries are too familiarly known to 
 require illustration. I need not enlarge upon the 
 punishments inflicted on it by German, Goth, 
 Vandal, Hun, and Byzantine, who in those 
 same centuries overspread the country, or upon 
 the destruction of cities, villas, monasteries, of 
 every place where literature might be stored, 
 or civilization transmitted to posterity. Bar- 
 barians occupied the broad lands of nobles 
 and senators ; mercenary bands infested its roads, 
 and tyrannized in its towns and its farms ; even 
 the useful arts were gradually forgotten, and the 
 ruins of its cities sufficed for the remnant of its 
 citizens. Such was the state of things, when, 
 after the gleam of prosperity and hope which 
 accompanied the Gothic ascendency, the Lom- 
 bards came down in the age of St. Gregory, 
 a more fatal foe than any before, to complete 
 the desolation of the garden of Europe. 
 
 Encompassed then by such calamities, present 
 and hereditary, through such a succession of 
 centuries and in such a multitude of countries, 
 where should the Roman Pontiff look for a 
 refuge of learning, sacred and profane, when 
 the waters were out all over the earth ? What 
 
184 TBADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 place shall lie prepare, what people shall he 
 choose, with a view to a service, the more 
 necessary in proportion as it was difficult? I 
 know where it must be; doubtless in the old 
 citadel of science, which hitherto had been safe 
 from the spoiler, — in Alexandria. The city and 
 country of the Ptolemies was inviolate as yet ; 
 the Huns had stopped on its eastern, the 
 Vandals at its western boundary; and though 
 Athens and Rhodes, Carthage and Madaura, 
 Cordova and Lerida, Marseilles and Bourdeaux, 
 Kheims and Milan, had been overrun by the 
 barbarian, yet the Museum, the greatest of all 
 schools, and the Serapeum, the largest of all 
 libraries, had recovered from the civil calamities 
 which had pressed upon them in a past century, 
 and were now far away from the Lombard, who 
 was the terror of the age. It would have been 
 a plausible representation in the age of St. 
 Gregory and his immediate successors, if human 
 wisdom had been their rule of judgment, that 
 they must strengthen their alliance, since they 
 could not with ambitious and schismatical 
 Constantinople, at least with Alexandria. Yet 
 to Alexandria they did not turn, and in fact, 
 before another century had passed, Alexandria 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 185 
 
 itself was taken, and her library burned by 
 an enemy, more hostile to religion, if not to 
 philosophy, even than the Lombard. The in- 
 stinctive sagacity of Popes, when troubled 
 about the prospective fortunes of the human 
 race, did not look for a place of refuge to a city 
 which had done great services to science and 
 literature in its day, but was soon to fall for ever. 
 The weak and contemptible things of this 
 world are destined to bring- to nought and to 
 confound the strong and noble. High up in the 
 North, above the continent of Europe, lay two 
 sister islands, ample in size, happy in soil and 
 climate, and beautiful in the face of the country. 
 Alas ! that the passions of man should alienate 
 from one another, those whom nature and reli- 
 gion had bound together ! So far away were 
 they from foreign foes, that one of them the bar- 
 barians had never reached, and though a solitary 
 wave of their invasion had passed over the 
 other, it was not destined to be followed by a 
 second for some centuries. In those days the 
 larger of the two was called Britannia, the lesser 
 Hibernia. The latter was then the seat of a 
 flourishing Church, abounding in the fruits of 
 sanctity, learning, and zeal ; the former, at least 
 
186 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 its southern half, had formed part of the Em- 
 pire, had partaken both of its civilization and 
 its Christianity, but had lately been occupied, 
 with the extermination of its population, by the 
 right wing of the great barbaric host which 
 was overrunning Europe. I need but allude to 
 a well-known history ;- we all recollect how some 
 of those pagan invaders of Britain appeared for 
 sale in the slave-market at Rome, and were 
 taken as samples of their brethren by the great 
 Saint so. often mentioned in these pages, who 
 succeeded at length in buying the whole race, 
 not for any human master, but 'for Christ. 
 
 St. Gregory, who, amid his troubles at Rome, 
 engaged in this sacred negociation, was led by 
 his charity towards a particular people to do a 
 deed which resulted in surpassing benefits on the 
 whole of Christendom. Here lay the answer 
 to the prayers and questionings of himself and 
 other holy Popes, and the solution of the great 
 problem which had so anxiously perplexed their 
 minds. The old world was to pass away, and 
 its wealth and wisdom with it; but these two 
 islands were to be the storehouse of the past and 
 the birthplace of the future. A divine purpose 
 ruled his act of love towards the Anglo-Saxon 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 187 
 
 race; or, if we ascribe it to the special pre- 
 science proper to Popes, then we may say that it 
 was inspired by what he saw already realized in 
 his own day, in the instance of the remarkable 
 people planted from time immemorial on the sister 
 island. For the Celt, it cannot be denied, prece- 
 ded the Anglo-Saxon, not only in his Christianity, 
 but in his cultivation and custody of learning, 
 religious and secular, and again in his special 
 zeal for its propagation; and St. Gregory, in 
 evangelizing England, was but following the ex- 
 ample of St. Celestine. Let us on this point hear 
 the words of an historian, who has high claims 
 on the respect and gratitude of this generation : — 
 " During the sixth and seventh centuries", 
 says Dr. Dollinger, " the Church of Ireland 
 stood in the full beauty of its bloom. The 
 spirit of the gospel operated amongst the people 
 with a vigorous and vivifying power ; troops of 
 holy men, from the highest to the lowest ranks 
 of society, obeyed the counsel of Christ, and 
 forsook all things, that they might follow Him. 
 There was not a country of the world, during 
 this period, which could boast of pious founda- 
 tions or of religious communities equal to those 
 that adorned this far distant island. Among the 
 
188 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Irish, the doctrines of the Christian Religion 
 were preserved pure and entire; the names of 
 heresy or of schism were not known to them; 
 and in the Bishop of Rome they acknowledged 
 and venerated the Supreme Head of the Church 
 on earth, and continued with him, and through 
 him with the whole Church, in a never inter- 
 rupted communion. The schools in the Irish 
 cloisters were at this time the most celehrated in 
 all the West; and in addition to those which 
 have been already mentioned, there flourished 
 the Schools of St. Finian of Clonard, founded 
 in 530, and those of Cataldus, founded in 640. 
 Whilst almost the whole of Europe was deso- 
 lated by- war, peaceful Ireland, free from the in- 
 vasions of external foes, opened to the lovers 
 of learning and piety a welcome asylum. The 
 strangers, who visited the island, not only from 
 the neighbouring shores of Britain, but also 
 from the most remote nations of the Continent, 
 received from the Irish people the most hos- 
 pitable reception, a gratuitous entertainment, 
 free instruction, and even the books that were 
 necessary for their studies. Thus in the year 
 536, in the time of St. Senanus, there arrived at 
 Cork from the Continent, fifteen monks, who 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 189 
 
 were led thither by their desire to perfect them- 
 selves in the practices of an ascetic life under 
 Irish directors, and to study the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures in the school established near that city. 
 At a later period, after the year 650, the Anglo- 
 Saxons in particular passed over to Ireland in 
 great numbers for the same laudable purposes. 
 On the other hand, many holy and learned 
 Irishmen left their own country to proclaim the 
 faith, to establish or to reform monasteries in 
 distant lands, and thus to become the benefactors 
 of almost every nation in Europe". 
 
 Such was St. Columba, who is the Apostle 
 of the Northern Picts in the sixth century; 
 such St. Fridolin in the beginning of the same 
 century, who, after long labours in France, 
 established himself on the Rhine ; such the far- 
 famed Columbanus, who, at its end, was sent 
 with twelve of his brethren to preach in France, 
 Burgundy, Switzerland, and Lombardy, where 
 he died. All these great acts and encouraging 
 events had taken place, ere yet the Anglo- 
 Saxon race was converted to the faith, or at 
 least while it was still under education for its 
 own part in extending it ; and thus in the con- 
 temporary or previous labours of the Irish the 
 
190 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Pope found an encouragement, as time went on, 
 boldly to prosecute that conversion and educa- 
 tion of the English, which was beginning with 
 such good promise, — and not only by the labours 
 of the Irish elsewhere, for they themselves, as 
 the writer I have quoted intimates, took a fore- 
 most part in the very work. 
 
 "The foundation of many of the English sees", 
 he says, " is due to Irishmen; the Northumbrian 
 diocese was for many years governed by them, 
 and the abbey of Lindisfarne, which was peopled 
 by Irish monks and their Saxon disciples, spread 
 far around it its all-blessing influence. These 
 holy men served God and not the world ; they 
 possessed neither gold nor silver, and all that 
 they received from the rich, passed" through 
 their hands into the hands of the poor. Kings 
 and nobles visited them from time to time, only 
 to pray in their churches, or to listen to their 
 sermons; and as long as they remained in the 
 cloisters, they were content with the humble 
 food of the brethren. Wherever one of these 
 ecclesiastics or monks came, he was received 
 by all with joy; and whenever he was seen 
 journeying across the country, the people 
 streamed around him to implore his benedic- 
 
THE ISLES OF THE SOUTH. 191 
 
 tion and to hearken to his words. The priests en- 
 tered the villages only to preach or to administer 
 the sacraments; and so free were they from 
 avarice, that it was only when compelled by 
 the rich and noble, that they would accept 
 lands for the erection of monasteries. Thus 
 has Bede described the Irish bishops, priests, 
 and monks of Northumbria, although so dis- 
 pleased with their custom of celebrating Easter. 
 Many Anglo-Saxons passed over to Ireland, 
 where they received a most hospitable reception 
 in the monasteries and schools. In crowds, 
 numerous as bees, as Aldhehn writes, the 
 English went to Ireland, or the Irish visited 
 England, where the Archbishop Theodore was 
 surrounded by Irish scholars. Of the most 
 celebrated Ango-Saxon scholars and saints, many 
 had studied in Ireland; among these were St. 
 Egbert, the author of the first Anglo-Saxon 
 mission to the pagan continent, and the blessed 
 Willebrod, the Apostle of the Frieslanders, who 
 had resided twelve years in Ireland. From the 
 same abode of virtue and of learning, came 
 forth two English priests, both named Ewald, 
 who in 690, went as messengers of the gospel to 
 the German Saxons, and received from them 
 
192 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 the crown of martyrdom. An Irishman, Mail- 
 duf, founded, in the year 670, a school, which 
 afterwards grew into the famed Abbey of Mal- 
 mesbury; among his scholars was St. Aldhelm, 
 afterwards Abbot of Malmesbury, and first 
 bishop of Sherburne or Salisbury, and whom, 
 after two centuries, Alfred pronounced to be the 
 best of the Anglo-Saxon poets". 
 
 The seventh and eighth centuries are the glory 
 of the Anglo-Saxon Church, as are the sixth 
 and seventh of the Irish. As the Irish mission- 
 aries travelled down through England, France, 
 and Switzerland, to lower Italy, and attempted 
 Germany at the peril of their lives, converting 
 the barbarian, restoring the lapsed, encourag- 
 ing the desolate, collecting the scattered, and 
 founding churches, schools, and monasterieSf- 
 as they went along; so, amid the deep pagan 
 woods of Germany and round about, the English 
 Benedictine plied his axe and drove his plough, 
 planted his rude dwelling and raised his rustic 
 altar upon the ruins of idolatry, and then 
 settling down as a colonist upon the soil, 
 began to sing his chants and to copy his old 
 volumes, and thus to lay the slow but sure 
 foundations of the new civilization. Distinct, 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 193 
 
 nay antagonistic, in character and talent, the 
 one nation and the other, Irish and English, 
 the one more resembling the Greek, the odier 
 the Roman, open from the first perhaps to 
 jealousies as well as rivalries, they consecrated 
 their respective gifts to the Almighty Giver, 
 and, labouring together for the same great end, 
 they obliterated whatever there was of human in- 
 firmity in their mutual intercourse by the merit 
 of their common achievements. Each by turn 
 could claim preeminence in the contest of sanc- 
 tity and of learning. In the schools of science 
 England has no name to rival Erigena in origin- 
 ality, or St. Virgil in freedom of thought ; nor 
 among its canonized women any saintly virgin 
 to compare with St. Bridget; nor, although it 
 has 150 saints in its calendar, can it pretend to 
 equal that Irish multitude which the Booh of 
 Life alone is large enough to contain. Nor can 
 Ireland, on the other hand, boast of a Doctor 
 such as St. Bede, or of an Apostle equal to St. 
 Boniface, or of a Martyr like St. Thomas, — or of 
 a list of royal devotees so extended as that of the 
 thirty male or female Saxons, who in the course 
 of two centuries resigned their crowns, — or as 
 
 the roll of twenty-three kings, and sixty queens 
 
 13 
 
194 TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 and princes, who, between the seventh and the 
 eleventh centuries, gained a place among the 
 saints. Yet, after all, the Irish, whose brilliancy 
 of genius has sometimes been considered,' like 
 the Greek, to augur fickleness and change, have 
 managed to persevere to this day in the science 
 of the saints, long after their ancient rivals have 
 lost the gift of faith. 
 
 But I am not writing a history of the Church, 
 nor of England or Ireland; but tracing the 
 fortunes of literature. When Charlemagne arose 
 upon the Continent, the special mission of the 
 two islands was at an end; and accordingly 
 Ragnor Lodbrog with his Danes began his de- 
 scents upon their coasts. Yet they were not 
 superseded, till they had formally handed over 
 the tradition of learning to the schools of 
 France, and had written their immortal names 
 on one and the same page of history. The 
 Anglo-Saxon Alcuin was the first Rector, and 
 the Irish Clement the second, of the Studium 
 of Paris. In the same age the Irish John was 
 sent to found the school of Pavia; and, when 
 the heretical Claudius of Turin exulted over 
 the ignorance of the devastated Churches of the 
 Continent, and called the Synod of Bishops, 
 
THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. 195 
 
 who summoned him, " a congregation of asses", 
 it was no other than the Irish Dungall, a monk 
 of St. Denis, who met and overthrew the pre- 
 sumptuous railer. 
 
196 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 Dktachment, as we know from spiritual books, 
 is a rare and high Christian virtue; a great 
 Saint, St. Philip Neri, said that, if he had a 
 dozen really detached men, he should be able to 
 convert the world. To be detached is to be 
 loosened from every tie which binds the soul to 
 the earth, to be dependent on nothing sublunary, 
 to lean on nothing temporal ; it is to care simply 
 nothing what other men choose to think or say 
 of us, or do to us ; to go about our own work, 
 because it is our duty, as soldiers go to battle, 
 without a care for the consequences ; to account 
 credit, honour, name, easy circumstances, com- 
 fort, human affections, just nothing at all, when 
 any religious obligation involves the sacrifice of 
 them. It is to be as reckless of all these goods 
 of life on such occasions, as under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances we are lavish and wanton, if I must 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 197 
 
 take an example, in our use of water, — or as we 
 make a present of our words without grudging to 
 friend or stranger, — or as we get rid of wasps or 
 flies or gnats, which, trouble us, without any sort 
 of compunction, without hesitation before the 
 act, and without a second thought after it. 
 
 Now this " detachment" is one of the special 
 ecclesiastical virtues of the Popes. They are of 
 all men most exposed to the temptation of secu- 
 lar connexions ; and, as history tells us, they have 
 been of all men least subject to it. By their 
 very office they are brought across every form of 
 earthly power ; for they have a mission to high 
 as well as low, and it is on the high, and not the 
 low, that their maintenance ordinarily depends. 
 Csesar ministers to Christ; the framework of 
 society, itself a divine ordinance, receives such 
 important aid from the sanction of religion, that 
 it is its interest in turn to uphold religion, and to 
 enrich it with temporal gifts and honours. Or- 
 dinarily speaking, then, the Roman Pontiffs owe 
 their exaltation to the secular power, and have 
 a great stake in its stability and prosperity. 
 Under such circumstances, any men but they 
 would have had a strong leaning towards what is 
 called " Conservatism"; and they have been, and 
 
198 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 are, of course Conservatives in the right sense of 
 the word; that is, they cannot hear anarchy, 
 they think revolution an evil, they pray for the 
 peace of the world and the prosperity of all 
 Christian States, and they effectively support the 
 cause of order and good government. The name 
 of Religion is but another name for law -on the 
 one hand, freedom on the other ; and at this very 
 time, who are its professed enemies, hut Social- 
 ists, Red Republicans, Anarchists, and Rebels? 
 But a Conservative, in the political sense of the 
 word, commonly signifies something else, which 
 , the Pope never is, and cannot be. It means a 
 ' man who is at the top of the tree, and knows it, 
 and means never to come down, whatever it may 
 cost him to keep his place there. It means a 
 man who upholds government and society and 
 the existing state of things, — not because it 
 exists, — not because it is good and desirable, 
 because it is established, because it is a benefit to 
 the population, because it is full of promise for 
 the future, — but rather because he himself is well I 
 off in consequence of it, and because to take care 
 of number one is his main political principle. 
 It means a man who defends religion, not for 
 religion's sake, but for the sake of its accidents 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 199 
 
 and externals ; and in this sense conservative a 
 Pope can never be, without a simple betrayal of 
 the dispensation committed to him. Hence at 
 this very moment the extreme violence against 
 the Holy See, of the British legislature and con- 
 stituency and their newspapers and other organs, 
 mainly because it will not identify the cause of 
 civil government with its own, because, while it 
 ever benefits this world, it ever contemplates the 
 world unseen. 
 
 So much, however, is intelligible enough ; but 
 there is a more subtle form of Conservatism, by 
 which ecclesiastical persons are much more 
 likely to be tempted and overcome, and to 
 which also the Popes are shown in history to be 
 superior. Temporal possessions and natural 
 gifts may be dedicated to the service of religion ; 
 however, since they do not lose their old nature 
 by being invested by a new mission or quality, 
 they still possess the pabulum of temptation, and 
 may be fatal to ecclesiastical " detachment". To 
 prefer the establishment of religion to its purity, 
 . is Conservatism, though in a plausible garb. It 
 was once of no uncommon occurrence for saintly 
 ■Bishops, in the time of famine or war, to break 
 up the Church plate and sell it, in order to re- 
 
200 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 lieve the hungry or to redeem the captives by the 
 sums which it brought them. And this proceed- 
 ing was not unfrequently urged against them in 
 their day as a great offence ; hut the Ghurch has 
 always justified them. Here we see, as in a 
 typical instance, both the dangerous Conserva- 
 tism, of which I am speaking, and its righteous 
 repudiation. It is an over-attachment to the 
 ecclesiastical establishment, as such ; — to the seats 
 of its power, to its holy places, its sanctuaries, 
 churches, and palaces, — to its various national 
 hierarchies, with their several prescriptions, pri- 
 vileges, and possessions, — to traditional lines of 
 policy, precedent, and discipline, — to rules and 
 customs of long standing. But a great Pontiff 
 must be detached from everything save the 
 deposit of faith, the tradition of the Apostles, 
 and the vital principles of the divine polity. 
 He may use, he may uphold, he may and will 
 be very slow to part with, a hundred things 
 which have grown up, or taken shelter, or are 
 stored, under the shadow of the Church; but, at 
 bottom, and after all, he will be simply de- 
 tached from pomp and etiquette, secular rank, 
 secular learning, schools and libraries, Basilicas 
 and Gothic cathedrals, old ways, old alliances, 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 201 
 
 and old friends. He will be rightly jealous of 
 their loss, but still he ■will "know nothing but" 
 Him whose Vicar he is ; he will not stake his 
 fortunes, he will not rest his cause, upon any one 
 else : — this is what he will do, and what he will 
 not do, as in fact the great Popes of history have 
 shown, in their own particular instances, on so 
 many and various occasions. 
 
 Take the early Martyr-Popes, or the Gregories 
 and the Leos ; whether they were rich or poor, 
 in power or in persecution, they were simply 
 detached from every earthly thing save the Rock 
 of Peter. This was their adamantine foundation, 
 their starting-point in every" enterprise, their 
 refuge in every calamity, the point of leverage 
 by which they moved the world. Secure in 
 this, they have let other things come and go, as 
 they would ; or have deliberately made light of 
 what they had, in order that they might gain 
 what they had not. They have known, in the 
 fulness of an heroic faith, that, while they were 
 true to themselves and to their divinely appointed 
 position, they could not but " inherit the earth", 
 and that, if they lost ground here, it was only to 
 make progress elsewhere. Old men usually get 
 fond of old habits ; they cannot imagine, under- 
 
202 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 stand, relish any thing to which they are not 
 accustomed. The Popes have been old men; 
 but, wonderful to say, they have never been slow 
 to venture out upon a new line, when it was 
 necessary, and had ever been looking about, 
 sounding, exploring, taking observations, recon- 
 noitring, attempting, even when there was no 
 immediate reason why they should not let well 
 alone, as the world would say, or even when they 
 were hampered with difficulties at their door so 
 great, that you would think that they had no 
 time or thought to spare for anything in the 
 distance. It is but a few years ago that a man of 
 eighty, of humble origin, the most conservative 
 of Popes, as he was considered, with disaffection 
 and sedition upheaving his throne, was found to 
 be planning missions for the interior of Africa, 
 and, when a moment's opportunity was given 
 him, made the most autocratical of Emperors, 
 the very hope of Conservatives, the very terror 
 of Catholics, quail beneath his glance. And, 
 thus independent of times and places, the Popes 
 have never found any difficulty, when the 
 proper moment came, of following out a new and 
 daring line of policy (as their astonished foes 
 have called it), of leaving the old world to shift 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 203 
 
 for itself and to disappear from the scene in its 
 due season, and of fastening on and establishing 
 themselves in the new. 
 
 I am led to this line of thought by St. Gregory's 
 behaviour to the Anglo-Saxon race, on the break- 
 up of the old civilization. I am not mentioning 
 our people for their own sake, but because thev 
 furnish an instance of that remarkable trait in the 
 character of Popes, of which I have been speak- 
 ing. One would have thought that in the age oJ 
 St. Gregory, a Pope had enough to do in living 
 on from day to day, without troubling himsell 
 about the future ; that, with the Lombard at his 
 doors, he would not have had spirit to set aboul 
 converting the English ; and that, if he was 
 anxious about the preservation of learning, he 
 would have looked elsewhere than to the Isles 
 of the North, for its refuge in the evil day, 
 Why, I repeat, was it not easier, safer, and 
 more feasible for him to have made much oi 
 the prosperous, secure, and long established 
 schools of Alexandria, when the enemy wenl 
 about plundering and burning? He was nol 
 indeed on the best terms with Constantinople : 
 Antioch was exposed to other enemies, and had 
 suffered from them already; but Alexandria 
 
204 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 was not only learned and protected, but was 
 a special ally of the Holy See ; yet Alexandria 
 was put aside for England and Ireland. 
 
 With what pertinacity of zeal does Gregory 
 send his missionaries to England ! with what an 
 appetite he waits for the tidings of their pro- 
 gress ! with what a relish he dwells over the good 
 news, when they are able to send it ! He wrote 
 back to Augustine in words of triumph: — 
 '"Gloria in excelsis Deo'", he says, "'et in terra 
 pax hominibus bonse voluntatis !' for the Grain 
 of corn died and was buried in the earth, that 
 It might reign with a great company in 
 Heaven, — by whose death we live, by whose 
 weakness we are strengthened, by whose suf- 
 ferings we escape suffering, by whose love we 
 are seeking in Britain brothers whom we know 
 not of, by whose gift we find those whom, not 
 knowing, we were seeking. Who can describe 
 the joy, which was caused in the hearts of all 
 the faithful here, on the news that the English 
 nation, by the operation of the grace of the 
 Omnipotent God, and by your labours, my 
 brother, had been rescued from the shades of 
 error and overspread with the light of holy 
 faith ! If on one penitent there is great joy in 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 205 
 
 heaven, what, think we, does it become, when a 
 whole people has turned from its error, and has 
 betaken itself to faith, and condemned the evil 
 it has done by repenting of the doing ! Where- 
 fore in this joy of Heaven and Angels, let 
 me say once more the very Angels' words, 
 ' Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax homini- 
 bus bonse voluntatis' ". 
 
 What were these outer barbarians to Gre- 
 gory? how could they relieve him or profit 
 him? What compensation could they make 
 for what the Church was then losing, or might 
 lose in future? Yet he corresponds with their 
 king and queen, urges them to complete what 
 they had so happily begun, reminds Bertha of 
 St. Helena, and what Helena did for the 
 Romans, and Ethelbert, of the great Constan- 
 tine; informs them of the satisfaction which 
 their conversion had given to the Imperial 
 Court at Constantinople, and sends them sacred 
 presents from the Apostle Peter. Nay he cannot 
 keep from talking of these savages, apropos of 
 anything whatever, for they have been running 
 in his head from the day he first saw them in 
 the slave market; and he makes the learned 
 Church of Alexandria the special partner of 
 
206 A CHARACTEEISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 his joy upon this contemptible victory. The 
 Patriarch Eulogius had been telling him of his 
 own success in reclaiming the heretics of Alex- 
 andria, and he sends him a piece of good news 
 in return: — "As I am well aware", he says, 
 " that, in the midst of your own good deeds, 
 you rejoice in those of others, I will repay you 
 for the kindness of your tidings by telling you 
 something of the same sort". And then he 
 goes on to speak of the conversion of the 
 English, " who are situated in a corner of the 
 world", as if their gain was comparable to that 
 of the educated and wealthy persons whom 
 Eulogius had been reconciling to the Church. 
 Nay, lest he should take too much credit for 
 his success, and grow vain upon it, he attributes 
 it to the prayers of the Alexandrians, or at least 
 of their Bishop, all that way off, as if the Angles 
 and Jutes were anything to thje city of the 
 Ptolemies ! " On Christmas Day", he says, 
 " more than 10,000 of them were baptized. I 
 tell you of it, that you may know, that, while' 
 your words avail for your own people, your 
 prayers avail for the ends of the earth. For you 
 are by prayer where, you are not, while you mani- 
 fest yourself by holy labours where you are". 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 207 
 
 Time went on, and the Popes showed less 
 and less disposition to cling to past associations, 
 or to confide in existing establishments, or to 
 embarrass themselves in political engagements. 
 When they were in trouble, their old friends 
 could not, or would not, help them. Rome was 
 almost deserted ; no throng of pilgrims mounted 
 the threshold of the Apostles; no students 
 flocked to the schools. The Pope sat in the 
 Lateran desolate, till at length news was brought 
 him that one foreigner had made his appearance. 
 Whence did he come? from the north; from 
 beyond the sea ; he was one of those barbarians 
 whom his Holiness's predecessor, Gregory of 
 blessed memory, had converted. The pilgrim 
 came, and he went. An interval, and then, I 
 think, a second pilgrim-student came ; and who 
 was he? Why, he was an Englishman too. A 
 fact to remember! one of these young barba- 
 rians is worth fa thousand of those time-servers 
 of Constantinople. Our predecessor must have 
 acted under some special guidance, when, at the 
 beginning of this century, he set his heart upon 
 the worshippers of Thor and Woden! So, 
 when a vacancy occurs in the see of Canter- 
 bury, Pope Vitalian determines to place in it 
 
208 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 a man of his own choosing, one whom so faithful 
 a people deserves. The Irish, says the Pope, 
 have done much for England, but teachers it 
 still needs. Moreover, local teaching, even the 
 best, and though saints be its organs, is apt to 
 have something in it of local flavour, and needs 
 from time to time to be refreshed from the 
 founts of apostolical tradition. We will pick 
 out, says he, the best specimens of learning and 
 science, which the length and breadth of south- 
 ern Christendom can furnish, and send them 
 thither, uniting the excellence of different lands, 
 under the immediate sanction of Rome. In this 
 eclecticism, he did but follow St. Gregory him- 
 self, who, when Augustine represented to him, 
 that, while faith was one, customs were so various, 
 made answer, " I wish that, wherever you find 
 anything especially pleasing to Almighty God, 
 whether in the Roman, or Gallic, or any other 
 Church, you would be at pains to select it, 
 and introduce it into the English Church, as 
 yet new in the faith". 
 
 This line of proceeding in ecclesiastical 
 matters was carried on by Vitalian into the pro- 
 vince of learning. The Greek colonies of 
 Syria and Asia Minor, and the Roman settle- 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 209 
 
 ments upon, the African coast, had been, almost 
 from their first formation, flourishing scl.ools of 
 education; and now that they were perishing 
 under the barbarism of the Saracens, they were 
 abandoned, by such professors and students as 
 remained, for the cities of Italy. In a convent 
 near Naples lived Adrian, an African ; at Rome 
 there was a monk, named Theodore, from Tarsus 
 in Cilicia ; both of them were distinguished for 
 their classical, as well as their ecclesiastical at- 
 tainments; and while Theodore had been edu- 
 cated in Greek usages, Adrian represented the 
 more congenial and suitable traditions of the 
 West. Of these two, Theodore, at the age of 
 sixty-six, was made Primate of England, while 
 Adrian was placed at the head of the monastery 
 of Canterbury. Passing through France, in 
 their way to their post of duty, they delayed 
 there a while at the command of the Pope, to 
 accustom themselves to the manners of the 
 North ; and at length they made their appear- 
 ance in England, with a collection of books, 
 Greek classics, and Gregorian chants, and what- 
 ever other subjects of study may be considered 
 to fill up the interval between those two. They 
 
 then proceeded to found schools of secular, as 
 
 ~ 14 
 
210 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 well as of sacred learning throughout the south 
 of the island ; and we are assured by St. Bede, 
 that many of their scholars were as well ac- 
 quainted with Latin and Greek, as with their 
 native tongue. One of these schools in Wilt- 
 shire, as the legend goes, was, on that account, 
 called " Greeklade", since corrupted into Crick- 
 lade, and, migrating afterwards to Oxford, was 
 one of the first elements of its University. 
 Meanwhile, one of those Saxon pilgrims, who 
 had been so busy at Rome, having paid, it is 
 said, as many as five visits to the Apostles, 
 went up to the north of the country. Before 
 the coming of the foreign teachers, Benedict 
 Biscop had been Abbot of Canterbury; but, 
 making way for Adrian, he took himself and 
 his valuable library, the fruit of his travels, 
 to Wearmouth in Northumberland, where he 
 founded a Church and monastery. 
 
 These details are not out of place in the 
 history of Universities; but I introduce them 
 here as illustrating a point, much to be re- 
 marked, in the character of the Popes. It is 
 a common observation of Protestants, that, 
 curiously enough, the Holy See is weakest at 
 home when it is strongest abroad, and they 
 
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. 211 
 
 derive some consolation to themselves, I do not 
 know what, from the fact. So it is ; this weak- 
 ness is an alleviation of the annoyance which 
 they feel at the sight of a world succumbing to 
 the See of Peter. They say, that after all, if the 
 world has its mortifications, Peter, on the other 
 hand, has his discomforts too. True, the gates 
 of hell do not prevail against him, but then he 
 is driven about from place to place, thrown into 
 prison, and, if he escapes the sword of Herod, 
 it is only that Nero may inflict upon him the 
 more cruel death of crucifixion. What then 
 is Peter's but a hollow power, which profits the 
 possessor nothing, though it be ecumenical? 
 ■Does it secure him health, strength, wealth, 
 comfort, ease, that he is revered by millions 
 whom he never saw? He inherits the earth, 
 but is not certain of a roof to sleep under, or a 
 grave to be buried in. How is he better off, 
 because his name is mentioned in Mass in the 
 Brazils, and his briefs are read in the Churches 
 of Cochin China ? 
 
 This taunt does but supply a boast to the 
 Catholic, and has a moral for the philosopher. 
 Certainly Popes • are unlike any other old and 
 infirm men that ever were. To clutch at what 
 
212 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 is within their reach, to keep tight hold of what 
 they have, to believe what they see, to care that 
 things should last their own time, to let posterity 
 shift for itself, to hate disturbance and turmoil, 
 to compound for present peace, to Joe sceptical 
 about improvements, to be averse to new plans, 
 in a word, to live in sense, not in imagination, 
 is the characteristic of old statesmen, old 
 lawyers, and old traders. They cannot throw 
 their minds into new ideas ; they cannot realize 
 the views of others; they cannot move out of 
 their lifelong position, nor advance one inch 
 towards any other. Were such a person, — 
 sound, safe, sensible, sagacious, experienced, — at 
 the elbow of Pope Gregory, or his successors of 
 the seventh century, he would have advised 
 him to fall back upon Constantinople, to come 
 to an understanding with the Imperial Court, 
 to link his fortunes with those of an effete civi- 
 lization, and to allow the encroachments of an 
 ambitious hierarchy ; as to Franks, and Frisons, 
 and Westphalians, and Saxons, and Burgun- 
 dians, and Visigoths, and Scots, to leave them 
 to themselves. I need not take an imaginary 
 instance; not many years have passed since 
 a Nuncio of the Holy See passed through Eng- 
 
ST. GKEGORY THE GREAT. 213 
 
 land in his way from Portugal to Rome, and 
 had an interview with a great warrior now ho 
 more, a man of preternatural sagacity in his 
 own sphere of thought, — which was not Ca- 
 tholic and - divine. When the ecclesiastic in 
 question asked the great man's advice what 
 Pope Gregory's policy should be, the Duke 
 abruptly replied, " Let him catch hold of the 
 coat-tail of Austria, and hang on as hard as he 
 can". Yes, and the able statesmen of each age 
 would have said the same to Gregory the First, 
 the Second, the Third, and the Seventh, as well 
 as to Gregory the Sixteenth, — to Julius, Sil- 
 verian, and Martin ; they would have counselled 
 the Vicar of Christ a safe and pleasant course, 
 " fallentis semita vitas", which would have ended 
 in some uninhabitable desert, or some steep pre- 
 cipice, far from the haunts of man. 
 
 When Pius the Ninth, foiled in his attempt 
 to better the civil condition of his states, from 
 the worthlessness both of his materials and his 
 instruments, was a fugitive and exile at Gaeta, 
 the Protestant public jeered and mocked at him, 
 as one whose career was over and whose candle 
 was put out. Yet he has but supplied a fresh 
 and the latest instance, later there cannot be, 
 
 L L 
 
214 A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 
 of the heroic detachment of Popes, and has 
 carried down the tradition of St. Peter into the 
 age of railroads and newspapers. But we are 
 entering upon a new part of the subject, which 
 our present limits will not admit, and which we 
 cannot perhaps treat without freedom. 
 
215 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. 
 PIUS THE NINTH. 
 
 A great personage, within the last fifteen years, 
 sent his advice to the Pope to make sure of the 
 coat-tail of Austria, and hold on. Austria is a 
 great and a religious power; she inherits the 
 prerogatives of the German Empire and the 
 titles of the Csesars. There must ever be rela- 
 tions of a very peculiar kind between the Holy 
 See and the Holy Roman Empire. Never- 
 theless, when the time came for taking ad- 
 vantage of his advice, the Pope did just the 
 reverse. He made light of this master of poli- 
 tical wisdom, and showed his independence of 
 Austria ; — not that he did not honour Austria, 
 but that he honoured the Rock of Peter more. 
 And what has been the consequence? he has 
 simply gained by his fidelity to his position. 
 Austria has been far more truly the friend and 
 protector, the child and servant of the Pope 
 than before; she has repealed the Josephine 
 
216 MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC, 
 
 statutes, so injurious to the Church, and has 
 opened her territories to the full religious in- 
 fluences of the Holy See. Here is an instance 
 of what I have called "ecclesiastical detach- 
 ment", and of its working. 
 
 Again, a revolution treats out in Europe, 
 and a deep scheme is laid to mix up the Pope 
 in secular politics of a contrary character. He 
 is to be the head of Italy, to range himself 
 against the sovereigns of Europe, and to carry 
 all things before him in the name of Religion. 
 He steadily refuses to accept the insidious pro- 
 posal; and at length he is driven out of his 
 dominions, because, while he would ameliorate 
 their condition, he would do so as a Father and 
 a Prince, and not as the tool of a conspiracy. 
 However, not many months pass, and the party 
 of disorder is defeated, and he goes back to 
 Rome again. Rome is his place ; but it is little 
 to him whether he is there or away, compared 
 with the duty of fidelity to his Trust. 
 
 Once more, the power which restores him 
 to his country, presumes ; and insists upon his 
 modelling his temporal polity upon the uneccle- 
 siastical principles of a foreign code. France, 
 too, as Austria, is a great Catholic power ; the 
 
PIUS THE NINTH. 217 
 
 eldest born of the Church; the representative 
 of the coming civilization, as Austria is the heir 
 of the past ; but France was not likely to gain 
 for the Code of a dead Emperor, what that 
 Emperor, in the plenitude of his living genius 
 and authority, could not compass for it. The 
 Pope refuses to subject himself to France, as he 
 had refused to subject himself to Austria ; and 
 what is the consequence ? It is the old story ; a 
 new Emperor arises, with the name, and without 
 the religious shortsightedness, of his great prede- 
 cessor. He has the wisdom to run a race with 
 Austria in doing honour to the Church, and 
 France professes Catholicity with an ardour un- 
 known to her since the reign of Louis the 
 Fourteenth. 
 
 These are times of peculiar difficulty and 
 delicacy for the Church. It is not as in the 
 middle ages, or as in the ante-Nicene period, 
 when right and wrong were boldly marked out, 
 and there was a broad line between them, and 
 little chance of mistaking one for the other. In 
 such times detachment was another name for 
 faith; it was scarcely a virtue, substantive and 
 sui generis; for attachment to any temporal 
 possession or advantage then was practically 
 
218 MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 nothing else than apostasy. Things are other- 
 wise now; it has not, therefore, fallen to the 
 lot of many Popes, to have such opportunities 
 as Pius the Ninth, of resisting temptation, of re- 
 signing himself to the political weakness incident 
 to the Holy See, of falling back calmly upon its 
 traditionary principles, of rejecting the argu- 
 ments for innovating upon its true position, and 
 in consequence of attaining so rapid a triumph 
 after deplorable reverses. When Pius was at 
 Gaeta and Portici, the world laughed on hear- 
 ing that he was giving his attention to the 
 theological bearings of the doctrine of the Im- 
 maculate Conception. Little fancying what 
 various subject-matters fall all at once under a 
 Pope's contemplation, and are successively carried 
 out into effect, as circumstances require; little 
 dreaming of the intimate connexion of these 
 matters with each other, even when they seem 
 most heterogeneous ; or that a belief touching the 
 Blessed Virgin might have any influence upon 
 the fortunes of the Holy See; the wise men 
 of the day concluded from the Pope's Encyclical 
 about that doctrine, that he had, what tfoey 
 called, given up politics in disgust, and hai 
 become a harmless devotee or a trifling schooF 
 
PIUS THE NINTH. 219 
 
 divine. But soon they heard of other acts of 
 the Holy Father ; they heard of his interposition 
 in the East; of his success in Spain; of his 
 vigilant eye directed towards Sardinia and 
 Switzerland in his own neighbourhood, and 
 towards North and South America in another 
 hemisphere ; of his preachers spreading through 
 Germany; of his wonderful triumphs, already 
 noticed, in Austria and France ; of his children 
 rising as if out of the very earth in England ; 
 and of their increasing moral strength in Ire- 
 land, in proportion to her extraordinary suf- 
 ferings; of the hierarchies of England and 
 Holland, and of the struggle going forward on 
 the Rhine ; and then they exchanged contempt 
 for astonishment and indignation, saying that it 
 was intolerable that a potentate who could not 
 keep his own, and whose ease and comfort at 
 home were not worth a month's purchase, should 
 be so blind to his own interests as to busy him- 
 self with the fortunes of Religion at the ends of 
 the earth. 
 
 And an additional feeling arose, which it is 
 more to our purpose to dwell upon. They were 
 not only angry, but they began to fear. It may 
 
220 MOKAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 strike one at first with surprise, that, in the 
 middle of the nineteenth century, in an age of 
 professed light and liberality, so determined 
 a spirit of persecution should have arisen, as 
 we experience it, in these countries, against 
 the professors of the ancient faith. Catholics 
 have been startled, irritated, and depressed, at 
 this unexpected occurrence; they have been 
 frightened, and have wished to retrace their 
 steps ; but after all, far from suggesting matter 
 for alarm or despondency, it is nothing more 
 or less than a confession on the part of our 
 adversaries, how strorig we are, and how great 
 our promise. It is the expression of their 
 profound misgiving that the Religion which 
 existed long before theirs, it destined to live 
 after it. This is no mere deduction from their 
 acts ; it is their own avowal. They have seen 
 that Protestantism was all but extinct abroad; 
 they have confessed that its last refuge and 
 fortress was in England ; they have proclaimed 
 aloud, that, if England was supine at this 
 moment, Protestantism was gone. Twenty years 
 ago England could afford, as much in contempt 
 as in generosity, to grant to Catholics political 
 
PIUS THE NINTH. 221 
 
 emancipation.* Forty or fifty years ago it was 
 a common belief in her religious circles, that th« 
 great Emperor, with whom she was at war 
 was raised up to annihilate the Popedom. Bui 
 from the very grave of Pius the Sixth, anc 
 from the prison of Pius the Seventh, fron 
 the very moment that they had an opportunitj 
 of showing to the world their expertness in tha 1 
 ecclesiastical virtue of which I have said sc 
 much, the Catholic movement began. In pro 
 portion to the weakness of the Holy See ai 
 home, became its influence and its success ir 
 the world. The Apostles were told to be 
 prudent as serpents, and simple as doves. 11 
 has been the simplicity of the Sovereign Pontiffs 
 which has been their prudence. It is theii 
 fidelity to their commission, and their detach- 
 ment from all secular objects, which has giver 
 them the possession of the earth. 
 
 I am not pursuing the line of thought which 
 has engaged me in my last chapter and my pre- 
 
 * It is not meant that contempt was the feeling of 
 Sir Kohert Peel personally, or of the government of the day, 
 but of the general party advocating the measure from the 
 time of Pitt. 
 
222 MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 sent without a drift. It bears directly upon the 
 subject which leads me to write at all ; and it has 
 an important bearing, intelligible even to the his- 
 torian and philosopher, so that reason and expe- 
 rience will be able to extort from us, what faith 
 cannot obtain. A very pagan ought to be able 
 to prophesy that our University is destined for 
 great things. I look back at the early combats 
 of Popes Victor and Stephen ; I go on to Julius 
 and Celestine, Leo and Gregory, Boniface and 
 Nicholas ; I pass along the Middle Ages, down 
 to Paul the Third and Pius the Fifth; and 
 thence to the two Popes of the same name, 
 who occupy the most eventful fifty years, since 
 Christianity was; and I cannot shut my eyes 
 to the fact, that the Sovereign Pontiffs have 
 a gift, proper to themselves, of understanding 
 what is good for the Church, and what Catholic 
 interests require. And in the next place, I find 
 that this gift exercises itself in an absolute 
 independence of secular politics, and a detach- 
 ment from every earthly and temporal advantage, 
 and pursues its end by uncommon courses, and 
 by unlikely instruments, and by methods of its 
 own. I see that it shines the brightest, and is 
 the most surprising in its results, when its 
 
PITTS THE NINTH. 22c 
 
 possessors are the weakest in this world and the 
 most despised; that in them are most vividlj 
 exemplified the Apostle's words, in the mosl 
 beautiful and most touching of his Epistles 
 " We have this treasure in earthen vessels, thai 
 the excellency may be of the power of God, 
 and not of us ; as needy, yet enriching many, as 
 having nothing, and possessing all things". 
 
 I get these two points of history well intc 
 my mind ; and then I shut my book, and looli 
 at the world before my eyes. I see an age 
 of transition, the breaking up of the old and the 
 coming in of the new ; an old system shattered 
 some sixty years ago, and a new state of things 
 scarcely in its rudiments as yet, to be settled 
 perhaps some centuries after our time. And il 
 is a special circumstance in these changes, thai 
 they extend beyond the historical platform oi 
 human affairs ; not only is Europe broken up, 
 but other continents are thrown open, and the 
 new organization of society aims at embracing 
 the world. It is a day of colonists and emi- 
 grants ; — and, what is another most pertinent con- 
 sideration, the language they carry with them is 
 English, which consequently, as time goes on, is 
 certain, humanly speaking, to extend itself into 
 
224 MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 every part of the world. It is already occu- 
 pying the whole of North America, whence it 
 threatens to descend upon South ; already is it 
 the language of Australia, a country large 
 enough in the course of centuries to rival 
 Europe in population; already it has become 
 the speech of a hundred marts of commerce, 
 scattered over the East, and, even where not the 
 mother tongue, it is at least the medium of inter- 
 course between nations. And, lastly, though 
 the people who own that language is Protes- 
 tant, a race preeminently Catholic has adopted 
 it, and has a share in its literature; and this 
 Catholic race is, at this very time, of all tribes 
 of the earth, the most fertile in emigrants both 
 to the West and the South. These are the 
 facts of the day, which we should see before our 
 eyes, whether the Pope had anything to say to 
 them or no. The English language and the 
 Irish race are overrunning the world. 
 
 When then I consider what an eye the 
 Sovereign Pontiffs have for the future; and 
 what an independence in policy and vigour in 
 action have been the characteristics of their 
 present representative; and what a flood of 
 success, mounting higher and higher, has lifted 
 
o 
 
 PIUS THE NINTH. 22"5 
 
 up the Ark of God from the beginning of this 
 century; and then, that the Holy Father has 
 definitely put his finger upon Ireland, and 
 selected her soil as the seat of a great Catholic 
 University, to spread religion, science, and 
 learning, wherever the English language is 
 spoken ; when I take all these things together, — 
 I care not what others think, I care not what 
 others do, God has no need of men, — oppose 
 who will, shrink who will, I know and cannot 
 doubt that a great work is begun. It is no 
 great imprudence to commit oneself to a gui- 
 dance which never yet has failed; nor is it 
 surely irrational or fanatical to believe, that, 
 whatever difficulties or disappointments, reverses 
 or delays, may be our lot in the prosecution of 
 the work, its ultimate success is certain, even 
 though it seem .at first to fail, — just as the 
 greatest measures in former times have been the 
 longest in carrying out, as Athanasius triumphed 
 though he passed away before Arianism, and 
 Hildebrand died in exile, that his successors 
 might enter into his labours. 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 PABIS. 
 
 As nations are inscrutably brought within the 
 sacred fold, and inscrutably cast without it, so 
 are they used, while within it, in this way or 
 that, according to the supreme will, and for the 
 greater glory, of Him who has brought them 
 into being from some common ancestor, and 
 holds them together by unity of government or 
 by traditionary ideas. One Catholic nation is 
 high in the world, another low; one rises and 
 expands into an Empire, another is ever in the 
 position of subject or even dependent. England 
 and Ireland were, in the darkest age of Christian 
 history, the conservators of sacred and profane 
 knowledge : not, however, for any merit of their 
 own, but according to the good pleasure of their 
 Maker: and, when the time came, in His 
 counsels, for the revival of learning on the 
 Continent, then He dispensed with their mi- 
 
paris. 227 
 
 nistry, and put them aside. It is a remarkable 
 fact, to which I have already alluded, that the 
 appearance of the Danes off the coasts of Eng- 
 land and Ireland, the destroyers in both islands 
 of religion and science, synchronizes with the 
 rise of Charlemagne, the founder of modern 
 civilization. 
 
 Christianity, which hitherto might be con- 
 sidered as a quality superinduced upon the face 
 of society, now became the element, out of 
 which society grew into shape and reached its 
 stature. The Church had battled with the 
 Roman Empire, and had eventually vanquished 
 it ; but, while she succeeded in teaching it the 
 new song of the Saints, she did not demand oi 
 it that flexibility of the organs of speech which 
 only exists in the young. It was the case of an 
 old man learning a foreign tongue ; its figure, 
 gait, attitudes, and gestures, and in like manner 
 its accent, belonged to an earlier time. Up to 
 the point at which a change was imperative, its 
 institutions were suffered to remain just as they 
 had been in paganism ; christianized just so far 
 as to enable them to work christian-wise, how- 
 ever cumbrously or circuitously. And as to the 
 system of education in particular, I suppose the 
 
228 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 primary, or, as they may be better called, the 
 grammar schools, as far as they were not private 
 speculations, were from first to last in the hands 
 of the State: state-institutions, first of pagan, 
 then of mixed education. I do not mean to say 
 that there are no traces in Christian antiquity of 
 a higher pattern of education, in which religion 
 and learning were brought together, — as in the 
 method of teaching which St. Basil and St. 
 Gregory brought into Asia Minor from Alex- 
 andria, and in the Benedictine schools of Italy ; 
 but I am speaking of what the Christian Empire 
 did, and again of what the Church exacted from 
 it. She for the most part confined herself to 
 the education of the clergy, and their ecclesias- 
 tical education; the laity and secular learning 
 seem to have been still, more or less, in the 
 charge of the State ; — not, however, as if this 
 were the best way of doing things, as the at- 
 tempts I have spoken of bore testimony, but, 
 because she found things in a certain state, and 
 used them as best she could. Her aim was to 
 make the Empire Christian, not to revolu- 
 tionize it ; and, without a revolution of society, 
 the typical form of a Christian polity could not 
 have been given to the institutions of Rome. 
 
pabis. 229 
 
 But, when society was broken up, and had to be 
 constructed over again, the case was different; 
 it would have been as preposterous, under such 
 circumstances, not to build it up upon Catho- 
 licity, as it would have been to attempt to do so 
 before. Henceforth, as all government, so all 
 education, was to be founded on Revealed Truth. 
 Secular teaching was to be united to sacred; 
 and the Church had the supervision both of lay 
 students and of profane learning. 
 
 The new state of things began in the Franhish 
 Empire ; but it is observable how Rome after all 
 strikes the key note of the movement. Charle- 
 magne indeed betook himself to the two Islands 
 of the North for a tradition ; Alcuin, an English- 
 man, was at the head of his educational estab- 
 lishments; he came to France, not with sacred 
 learning only, but with profane; he set up 
 schools for laity as well as clergy ; but whence 
 was it that he in turn got the tradition which he 
 brought ? He refers us back for it to that earlier 
 age, when Theodore of Tarsus, Primate of Eng- 
 land, brought with him thither from Rome the 
 classics, and made Greek and Latin as familiar 
 to the Anglo-Saxons as their native tongue. 
 Alcuin was the scholar of Bede and Egbert; 
 
230 SCHOOLS OF CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 Egbert was educated in the York school of The- 
 odore, and Bede in that of Benedict Biscop and 
 of John precentor of the Vatican Basilica. Here 
 was the germ of the new civilization of Europe, 
 which was to join together what man had divi- 
 ded, to adjust the claims of Reason and of Reve- 
 lation, and to fit men for this world while it 
 trained them for another. Charlemagne has the 
 glory of commencing this noble work; and, 
 whether his school at Paris be called a Univer- 
 sity or not, he laid down principles of which a 
 University is the result, in that he aimed at edu- 
 cating all classes, and undertook all subjects of 
 teaching. 
 
 In the first place, however, he turned his 
 attention to the Episcopal Seminaries, which 
 seem to have been institutions of the earliest 
 times of Christianity, though they had been in 
 great measure interrupted amid the dissolution 
 of society consequent upon the barbarian in- 
 roads, as various passages in these Essays have 
 already suggested. His restoration lasted for 
 four centuries, till Universities rose in their turn, 
 and indirectly interfered with the efficiency of 
 the Seminaries, by absorbing them into the 
 larger institution. This inconvenience was set 
 
PARIS. 231 
 
 right at a later period by the Council of Trent, 
 whose wise regulations were in turn the objects 
 of the jealousy of the Josephism of the last 
 century, which used or rather abused the Uni- 
 versity system to their prejudice. The present 
 policy of the Church in most places has been to 
 return to the model of the first ages and of 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 To these Seminaries he added, what I have 
 spoken of as his characteristic institution, gram- 
 mar and public schools, as preparatory both to 
 the Seminaries and to secular professions. Not 
 that they were confined to grammar, for they 
 recognized the trivium and quadrivium; but 
 grammar, in the sense of literature, seems to 
 have been the principal subject of their teaching. 
 These schools were established in connexion 
 with the Cathedral or the Cloister ; and they re- 
 ceived ecclesiastics and the sons of the nobility, 
 though not to the exclusion of the poorer class. 
 
 Charlemagne probably did not do much more 
 than this ; though it was once the custom to 
 represent him as the actual founder of the Uni- 
 versity of Paris. But great creations are not 
 perfected in a day; without doing everything 
 which had to be done, he did many things, and 
 
232 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 opened the way for more. It will throw light 
 upon his position in the history of Christian edu- 
 cation, to quote a passage from the elaborate 
 work of Bulseus, on the University of Paris, 
 though he not unnaturally claims the great 
 Emperor as its founder, maintaining that he 
 established, not only the grammar or public 
 schools already mentioned, but the higher 
 Studia generalia. This assumption, well founded 
 or not, will not make his account less instruc- 
 tive, if, as I have supposed, Charlemagne cer- 
 tainly introduced ideas and principles of which 
 the University was the result. 
 
 "It is observable", says Bulseus, "that Charles, 
 in seeking out masters, had in view, not merely 
 the education of his own family, but of his 
 subjects generally, and of all lovers of the 
 Christian Religion ; and wished to be of service 
 to all students and cultivators of the liberal arts. 
 It is indeed certain that he sought out learned 
 men and celebrated teachers from all parts of 
 the world, and induced them to accept his invi- 
 tation by rewards and honours, on which Alcuin 
 lays great stress. ' I was well aware, my Lord 
 David', he says, ' that it has been your praise- 
 worthy solicitude ever to love and to extol 
 
paeis. 233 
 
 ■wisdom ; and to exhort all men to cultivate it, 
 nay, to incite them by means of prizes and 
 honours ; and out of divers parts of the world 
 to bring together its lovers as the helpers of 
 your good purpose; among whom you have 
 taken pains to secure even me, the meanest slave 
 of that holy wisdom, from the extremest boun- 
 daries of Britain'. 
 
 " It is evident hence, that Charles's intention 
 was not to found any common sort of schools, 
 such, that is, as would have required only a few 
 instructors, but public schools, open to all, and 
 possessing all kinds of learning. Hence the ne- 
 cessity of a multiplicity of Professors, who from 
 their number and the remoteness of their homes 
 might seem a formidable charge, not only to the 
 court, or to one city, but even to his whole 
 kingdom. Such is the testimony of Eginhart, 
 who says : ' Charles loved foreigners and took 
 great pains to support them ; so that their 
 number was a real charge not to the Palace 
 alone, but even to the realm. Such, however, 
 was his greatness of soul, that the burden of 
 them was no trouble to him, because even of 
 great inconveniences the praise of munificence is 
 a compensation'. 
 
234 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNK. 
 
 " Charles had in mind to found two hinds of 
 schools, less and greater. The less he placed in 
 Bishops' palaces, canons' cloisters, monasteries, 
 and elsewhere ; the greater, however, he estab- 
 lished in places which were public, and suitable 
 for public teaching ; and he intended them, not 
 only for ecclesiastics, but for the nobility and 
 their children, and on the other hand for poor 
 scholars too; in short, for every rank, class, 
 and race. 
 
 " He seems to have had two institutions 
 before his mind, when he contemplated this 
 object; the first of them was the ancient schools. 
 Certainly, a man of so active and inquiring a 
 mind as Charles, with his intercourse with 
 learned persons and his knowledge of mankind, 
 must have been well aware that in former ages 
 these two kinds of schools were to be found 
 everywhere ; the one kind few in number, 
 public, and of great reputation, possessed more- 
 over of privileges, and planted in certain con- 
 spicuous and central sites. Such was the Alex- 
 andrian in Egypt, the Athenian in Greece; 
 such, under the Roman Emperors, the schools 
 of Rome, of Constantinople, of Berytus, which 
 are known to have been attended by multitudes, 
 
PARIS. 231 
 
 and amply privileged by Theodosius, Justinian 
 and other princes ; whereas the other kind o: 
 schools, which were far more numerous, were tc 
 be found up and down the country, in cities 
 towns, villages, and were remarkable neithei 
 in number of students nor in name. 
 
 " The other pattern which was open tc 
 Charles was to be found in the practice oi 
 monasteries, if it really existed there. The 
 Benedictines, from the very beginning of then 
 institution, had applied themselves to the pro- 
 fession of literature, and it has been their pur- 
 pose to have in their houses two kinds o; 
 schools, a greater or a less, according to the size 
 of the house ; and the greater they wished tc 
 throw open to all students, at a time when there 
 were but few laymen at all who could teach, sc 
 that externals, seculars, laymen, as well as 
 clerics, might be free to attend them. How- 
 ever, true as it was that boys, who were there 
 from childhood intrusted to the monks, bound 
 themselves by no vow, but could leave when 
 they pleased, marry, go to court, or enter the 
 army, still a great many of the cleverest of them 
 were led, either by the habits which they 
 acquired from their intercourse with their 
 
236 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 teachers, or by their persuasion, to embrace the 
 monastic life. And thus, while the Church in 
 consequence gained her most powerful supports, 
 the State on the other hand, was wanting in 
 men of judgment, learning, and experience, to 
 conduct its affairs. This led very frequently to 
 kings choosing monks for civil administration, 
 simply because no others were to be found 
 capable of undertaking it. 
 
 " Charles then, consulting for the common 
 good, made literature in a certain sense secular, 
 and transplanted it from the convents to the 
 royal palace ; in a word, he established in Paris 
 a Universal School like that at Rome. 
 
 " Not that he deprived Monks of the license 
 to teach and profess, though he certainly limited 
 it, from a clear view that that variety of 
 sciences, human and profane, which secular 
 academies require, is inconsistent with the pro- 
 fession and devotion of ascetics; and accor- 
 dingly, in conformity to the spirit of their 
 institute, it was his wish that the lesser schools 
 should be set up or retained in the Bishops' 
 palaces and monasteries, while he prescribed the 
 subjects which they were to teach. The case 
 was different with the schools which are higher 
 
paeis. 237 
 
 and public, which, instead of multiplying, he 
 confined to certain central and celebrated spots, 
 not more than to three in his whole empire — 
 Paris, and in Italy, Pavia and Bologna". 
 
 Such certainly was the result, in which his 
 reforms ended, even though they did not reach 
 it; and they may be said to have directly 
 tended to it, considering that it was their charac- 
 teristic, in contrast with the previous schools, to 
 undertake the education of laity as well as 
 clergy, and secular studies as well as religious. 
 But, after all, it was not in an Emperor's power, 
 though he were Charlemagne, to carry into 
 effect in any case, by the resources peculiar to 
 himself, so great an idea as a University. Be- 
 nefactors and patrons may supply the frame- 
 work of a Studiura Generale ; but there must 
 be a popular interest and sympathy, a spon- 
 taneous cooperation of the many, the concur- 
 rence of genius, and a spreading thirst for know- 
 ledge, if it is to live. And it so happened, that, 
 towards the end of the fourth century of the 
 institutions of Charlemagne, a remarkable in- 
 tellectual movement took place in Christendom ; 
 and to it must be ascribed the development of 
 Universities, out of the public or grammar 
 
238 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 schools, which I have already described. No 
 such movement could happen, without the rise 
 of some deep and comprehensive philosophy; 
 and, when it rose, then the existing Trivium 
 and Quadrivium became the subjects, and the 
 existing seats of learning the scene, of its vic- 
 tories; and next the curiosity and enthusiasm, 
 which it excited, attracted larger and larger 
 numbers to places which were hitherto but local 
 centres of education. Such a gathering of 
 students, such a systematizing of knowledge, 
 are the notes of a University. 
 
 The increase of members and the multipli- 
 cation of sciences both involved changes in the 
 organization of the Schools ; and of these the in- 
 crease of members was the first to modify them. 
 Hitherto there had been but one governor 
 over the students, who were but few at the most,- 
 and came from the neighbourhood; but now 
 the academic body was divided into Nations, 
 according to the part of Europe from which 
 they joined it, and each Nation had a head 01 
 its own, under the title of Procurator or Proctor. 
 There were traces of this division, as we have 
 seen in a former chapter, in Athens; where 
 the students were arranged under the names 
 
Paris. 239 
 
 of Attic, Oriental, Arab, and Pontic, with a 
 protector for each class. In like manner, in 
 the 'University of Paris there were four nations, 
 first, the French, which included the middle 
 and south of France, Spain, Italy, and Greece ; 
 secondly, the English, which, besides the two 
 British islands, comprehended Germany and 
 Scandinavia ; thirdly, the Norman ; and fourthly, 
 the Picards, who carried with them the inhabit- 
 ants of Flanders and Brabant. Again, in the 
 University of Vienna, there were also four 
 Nations, — Austria, the Rhine, Hungary, and Bo- 
 hemia. Oxford recognized only two Nations ; 
 the north English, which comprehended the 
 Scotch ; and the south English, which com- 
 prehended the Irish and Welsh. The Proctors 
 of the Nations both governed and represented 
 them ; the double office is still traceable, unless 
 the recent Act of Parliament has destroyed it, 
 in the modern constitution of Oxford, in which 
 the two Proctors on the one hand represent the 
 Masters of Arts in the Hebdomadal Board, and 
 on the other have in their hands the discipline 
 of the University. 
 
 And as Nations and their Proctors arose out 
 of the metropolitan character of a University, 
 
240 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 to which students congregated from the farthest 
 and most various places, so are Faculties and 
 Deans of Faculties the consequence of its ency- 
 clopedic profession. According to the idea of 
 the institutions of Charlemagne, each school had 
 its own teacher, who was called Rector, or 
 Master. In Paris, however, where the school 
 was founded in St. Genevieve's, the Chancellor 
 of that Church became the Rector, and he kept 
 his old title of Chancellor in his new office. 
 Elsewhere the head of the University was called 
 Provost. However, it was not every one who 
 would be qualified to profess even the Seven 
 Sciences, of which the old course of instruction 
 consisted, though the teaching was only elemen- 
 tary, and to become the Rector, Chancellor, or 
 Provost, of the University; but, when these 
 sciences became only parts of a whole system of 
 instruction, which 'demanded in addition a 
 knowledge of philosophy, scholastic theology, 
 civil and canon law, medicine, natural history, 
 and the Semitic languages, no one person was 
 equal to the undertaking. The Rector fell 
 back from the position of a teacher to that of 
 a governor; and the instruction was divided 
 among a board of Doctors, each of whom repre- 
 
PARIS. 241 
 
 sented a special province in Science. This is 
 the origin of Deans of Faculties ; and, inasmuch 
 as they undertook among themselves one of 
 those departments of academical duty, which 
 the Chancellor or Rector had hitherto fulfilled, 
 they naturally became his Council. In some 
 places the Proctors of the Nations were added. 
 Thus, in Vienna the Council consisted of the 
 Four Deans of Faculties and the Four Proctors. 
 As Nations preceded Faculties, we may sup- 
 pose that degrees, which are naturally connected 
 with the latter, either did not enter into the 
 original provisions of a University, or had not 
 the same meaning as afterwards. And this 
 seems to have been the case. At first they were 
 only testimonials that a resident was fit to take 
 part in the public teaching of the place; and 
 hence, in the Oxford forms still observed, the 
 Vice-Chancellor admits the person taking a 
 degree to the " lectio" of certain books. Degrees 
 would not at that time be considered mere 
 honours or testimonials, to be enjoyed by per- 
 sons who at once left the University and mixed 
 in the world. The University would only confer 
 them for its own purposes; and to its own 
 
 subjects, for the sake of its own subjects. It 
 
 16 
 
242 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 would claim nothing for them external to its 
 own limits; and, if so, only used a power 
 obviously connate with its own existence. But 
 of course the recognition of a University by the 
 State, not to say by other Universities, would 
 change the import of degrees, and, since such 
 recognition has commonly been granted from 
 the first, degrees have seldom been only what 
 they were in their original idea ; but the formal 
 words by which they are denoted, still preserve 
 its memory. As students on taking degrees are 
 admitted " legere et disputare", so are they called 
 "Magistri", that is, of the schools; and "Doctors", 
 that is, teachers, or in some places " Professors", 
 as the letters S. T. P. show, used instead of D.D. 
 
 It will be observed that the respective dis- 
 tributions into Faculties and into Nations are 
 cross-divisions. Another cross-division, on which 
 I shall not now enter, is into Colleges and Halls. 
 
 I conclude by enumerating the characteristic 
 distinctions, laid down by Bulseus, between the 
 public or grammar schools founded by Charle- 
 magne, and the Universities into which even- 
 tually some of them grew, or, as he would say, 
 which Charlemagne also founded. 
 
 First, he says, they differ from each other 
 
paris. 243 
 
 ratione disciplince. The Scholar Minores only 
 taught the Trivium and Quadrivium, the seven 
 liberal Arts; whereas the Scholse Majores added 
 Medicine, Law, and Theology. 
 
 Next, ratione loci; for the Minores were many 
 and everywhere, but the Majores only in great 
 cities, and few in number. I have already 
 remarked on the physical and social qualifica- 
 tions necessary for a place which is to become 
 the seat of a great school of learning: Bulseus 
 observes, that the Muses were said to inhabit 
 mountains, Parnassus or Helicon, spots high and 
 healthy and secured against the perils of war, 
 and the Academy was a grove ; though of course 
 he does not forget that it must be accessible too, 
 and in the highway of the world. " That the 
 city of Paris", he says, "is ample in size, largely 
 frequented, healthy and pleasant in site, there 
 can be no doubt". Frederic the Second spoke 
 the general sentiment, when he gave as a reason 
 for establishing a University at Naples, the con- 
 venience of the sea coast and the fertility of the 
 soil. We are informed by Matamorus, in his 
 account of the Spanish Universities,* that Sala- 
 
 * Hispan. Ilhistr. t. 2, p. 801. 
 
244 SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 manca was but the second site of its Univer- 
 sity, which was transferred thither from Palencia 
 on account of the fertility of the neighbourhood, 
 and the mildness of its climate. And Mr. 
 Prescott speaks of Alcala being chosen as the 
 site for his celebrated foundations by Cardinal 
 Ximenes, because " the salubrity of the air, and 
 the sober, tranquil complexion of the scenery, 
 on the beautiful borders of the Henares, seemed 
 well suited to academic study and meditation". 
 
 The third difference between the greater and 
 lesser schools lies ratione fundatorum. Popes, 
 Emperors, and Kings, are the founders of Uni- 
 versities ; lesser authorities in Church and State 
 are the founders of Colleges and Schools. 
 
 Fourthly, ratione privihgiorum. The very 
 notion of a University, I believe, is, that it is an 
 institution of privilege. I think it is Bulseus 
 who says, " Studia Generalia cannot exist with- 
 out privileges, any more than the body without 
 the soul. And in this all writers on Universities 
 agree". He reduces those privileges to two heads, 
 " Patrocinium" and " Prsemium"; and these, it is 
 obvious, may be either of a civil or an ecclesias- 
 tical nature. There were formerly five Uni- 
 versities endowed with singular privileges : those 
 
paeis. 245 
 
 of Rome, of Paris, of Bologna, of Oxford, and 
 of Salamanca ; but Antony a Wood quotes an 
 author who seems to substitute Padua for Rome 
 in this list. 
 
 Lastly, the greater and lesser schools differ 
 ratione regiminis. The head of a College is 
 one ; but a University is a " respublica lit- 
 teraria". 
 
246 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SUPPLY AND DEMAND: 
 THE SCHOOLMEN. 
 
 It is most interesting to observe how the foun- 
 dations of the present intellectual greatness of 
 Europe were laid, and most wonderful to think 
 that they were ever laid at all. Let us consider 
 how wide and how high is the platform of our 
 knowledge at this day, and what openings in 
 every direction are in progress, — openings of 
 such promise, that, unless some convulsion of 
 society takes place, even what we have attained, 
 will in future times be nothing better than a 
 poor beginning; and then on the other hand, 
 let us recollect that, seven centuries ago, put- 
 ting aside revealed truths, Europe had little 
 more than that poor knowledge, partial and un- 
 certain, and at best only practical, which is 
 conveyed to us by the senses. Even our first 
 principles now are beyond the most daring con- 
 jectures then; and what has been said so 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 247 
 
 touchingly of Christian ideas as compared with 
 pagan, is true in its way and degree of the pro- 
 gress of secular knowledge also in the seven 
 centuries I have named. 
 
 " What sages would have died to learn, 
 Is taught by cottage dames". 
 
 Nor is this the only point in which the revela- 
 tions of science may be compared to the super- 
 natural revelations of Christianity. Though 
 sacred truth was delivered once for all, and 
 scientific discoveries are progressive, yet there is 
 a great resemblance in the respective histories of 
 Christianity and -of Science. We are accus- 
 tomed to point to the rise and spread of Chris- 
 tianity as a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on 
 account of the weakness of its instruments, and 
 the appalling weight and multiplicity of the 
 obstacles which confronted it. To clear away 
 those obstacles was to move mountains; yet 
 this was done by a few poor, obscure, unbe- 
 friended men, and their poor, obscure, un- 
 befriended followers. No social movement can 
 come up to this marvel, which is singular and 
 archetypical, certainly; it is a divine work, and 
 we soon cease to admire it in order to adore. 
 
248 SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 
 
 But there is more in it than its own greatness 
 to contemplate ; it is so great as to be prolific of 
 greatness. Those whom it has created, its chil- 
 dren who have become such by a supernatural 
 power, have imitated, in their own acts, the dis- 
 pensation which made them what they were; 
 and, though they have not carried out works 
 eimply miraculous, yet they have done exploits 
 sufficient to bespeak their own unearthly origin, 
 and the new powers which had come into the 
 world. The revival of letters by the energy 
 of Christian ecclesiastics and laymen, when 
 everything had to be done, reminds us of 
 the birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work 
 of man can resemble a work of God. 
 
 Two characteristics, as I have already had 
 occasion to say, are generally found to attend 
 the history of science: — first, its instruments 
 have an innate force, and can dispense with 
 foreign assistance in their work ; and secondly, 
 these instruments must exist and must begin to 
 act, before subjects are found on whom they 
 are to operate. In plainer language, the teacher 
 is strong, not in the patronage of great men, but 
 in the intrinsic value and attraction of what he 
 has to communicate; and next, he must come 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 249 
 
 forward and advertise himself, before he can 
 gain hearers. This I have expressed before, 
 in saying that a great school of learning lived 
 in demand and supply, and that the supply 
 must be before the demand. Now, what is this 
 but the very history of the preaching of the 
 Gospel ? who but the Apostles and Evangelists 
 went out to the ends of the earth without 
 patron, or friend, or other external advantage 
 which could insure their success? and again, 
 who among the multitude they enlightened, 
 would have called for their aid unless they had 
 gone to that multitude first, and offered to it 
 blessings which up to that moment it had not 
 heard of? They had no commission, they had 
 no invitation, from man; their strength lay 
 neither in their being sent, nor in their being 
 sent for ; but in the circumstance that they had 
 that with them, a divine message, which they 
 knew would at once, when it was uttered, thrill 
 through the hearts of those to whom they spoke, 
 and make for themselves friends in any place, 
 strangers and outcasts as they were when they 
 first came. They appealed to the secret wants 
 and aspirations of human nature, to its laden 
 conscience, its weariness, its desolateness, and 
 
250 DKMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 its sense of the true and the divine ; nor did they 
 long wait for listeners and disciples, when they 
 announced the remedy of evils which were so real. 
 Something like this were the first stages of 
 the process by which in medieval Christendom 
 the structure of our present intellectual eleva- 
 tion was carried forward. From Rome as from 
 a centre, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, went 
 forth the missionaries of knowledge, passing to 
 and fro all over Europe; and, as metropolitan 
 sees marked the temporary presence of Apos- 
 tles, so did Paris, Pavia, and Bologna, and 
 Padua, and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, 
 Louvain, and Oxford, rise into Universities at 
 the voice of the theologian or the philosopher. 
 Moreover, as the Apostles went through labours 
 untold, by sea and land, in their charity to souls ; 
 so, if robbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and 
 scanty fare are trials of zeal, such trials were 
 encountered without hesitation by the martyrs 
 and confessors of science. And as Evangelists 
 had grounded their teaching upon the longing 
 for happiness natural to man, so did these 
 securely rest their cause on the natural thirst for 
 knowledge : and again as the preachers of Gospel 
 peace had often to bewail the ruin which perse- 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 251 
 
 cution or dissension had brought upon their 
 flourishing colonies, so also did the professors of 
 science often find or flee the ravages of sword or 
 pestilence in those places, which they themselves 
 perhaps in former times had made the seats of 
 religious, honourable, and useful learning. And 
 lastly, as kings and nobles have fortified and 
 advanced the interests of the Christian faith 
 without being necessary to it, so in like manner 
 we may enumerate with honour Charlemagne, 
 Alfred, Henry the First of England, Joan of 
 Navarre, and many others, as patrons of the 
 schools of learning, without being obliged to 
 allow that those schools could not have pro- 
 gressed without such countenance. 
 
 These are some of the points of resemblance 
 between the propagation of Christian truth and 
 the revival of letters ; and, to return to the two 
 points, to which I have particularly drawn at- 
 tention, the University Professor's confidence in 
 his own powers, and his taking the initiative in 
 the exercise of them, I find both these distinctly 
 recognized by Mr. Hallam in his history of 
 Literature. As to the latter point, he says, 
 " The schools of Charlemagne were designed to 
 lay the basis of a learned education, for which 
 
252 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 there was at that time no sufficient desire": — that 
 is, the supply was prior to the demand. As to 
 the former: "In the twelfth century", he says, 
 " the impetuosity with which men rushed to that 
 source of what they deemed wisdom, the great 
 University of Paris, did not depend upon acade- 
 mical privileges or eleemosynary stipends, though 
 these were undoubtedly very effectual in keeping 
 it up. The University created patrons, and was 
 not created by them"; — that is, demand and 
 supply were all in all. 
 
 A story of the age of Charlemagne will serve 
 in illustration. We are told that two wandering 
 Irish students were brought by British traders 
 to the coast of France. There, observing the 
 eagerness with which those hawkers of perish- 
 able merchandize were surrounded by the popu- 
 lace, they imitated them by crying out, " Who 
 wants wisdom ? here is wisdom on sale ! this is 
 the place for wisdom!" till a sensation was 
 created, and they were sent for and taken into 
 favour by the great Emperor. 
 
 The professors of Greece and Rome, though 
 pursuing the same course, had an easy time of 
 it, compared with the duties, which, at least in 
 the earlier periods or in certain localities, fell 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 253 
 
 upon the medieval missionaries of knowledge. 
 The pagan teachers might indeed be told to 
 quit the city, whither they had come, on their 
 outraging its religious sentiments or arousing its 
 political jealousy; but still they were received 
 as superior beings by the persons in immediate 
 contact with them, and what they lost in one 
 place they regained in another. On the con- 
 trary, as the cloister alone gave birth to the 
 revivers of knowledge, so the cloister alone pre- 
 pared them for their work. There was nothing 
 selfish in their aim, nothing cowardly in their 
 mode of operation. It was generosity which 
 sent them out upon the public stage; it was 
 ascetic practice which prepared them for it. 
 Afterwards, indeed, they received the secular re- 
 wards of their exertions ; but even then the 
 general character of the intellectual movement 
 remained as before. "The Doctors", says Fleury 
 in his Discourses, " being sure of finding in a 
 certain town occupation with recompense for 
 their labours, established themselves there of 
 their own accord ; and students, in like manner, 
 sure to find there good masters with all the com- 
 modities of life, assembled there in crowds from 
 all parts, even from distant countries. Thus 
 
254 . DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 they came to Paris from England, from Ger- 
 many and all the North, from Italy, from Spain". 
 Bee, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up 
 in the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, 
 who sought the cloister, soon attracted scholars 
 to its dreary clime from Italy, and transmitted 
 them to England. Lanfranc, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, was one of these, and he 
 found the simple monks so necessitous, that he 
 opened a school of logic to all comers, in order, 
 says William of Malmesbury, "that he might 
 support his needy monastery by the pay of the 
 students". The same author adds, that " his 
 reputation went into the most remote parts of 
 the Latin world, and Bee became a great and 
 famous Academy of letters". Here is an in- 
 stance of a commencement without support, 
 without scholars, in order to attract scholars, 
 and in them to find support. William of 
 Jumieges, too, bears witness to the effect, power- 
 ful, sudden, wide spreading, and various, of 
 Lanfranc's advertisement of himself. The fame 
 of Bee and Lanfranc, he says, quickly pene- 
 trated through the whole world ; and " clerks, 
 the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters of 
 the Latin schools, powerful laymen, high nobles, 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 255 
 
 flocked to him". What words can more stri- 
 kingly attest the enthusiastic character of the 
 movement he began, than to say that it carried 
 away with it all classes ; rich as well as poor, 
 laymen as well as ecclesiastics, those who were 
 in that day in the habit of despising letters, as 
 well as those who might wish to live by them ? 
 
 It was about a century after Lanfranc that from 
 this same monastery of Bee came forth another 
 Abbot, and he another Lombard, to begin a 
 second movement, in a new science, in these same 
 northern regions, especially in England. This 
 was the celebrated Vacarius, or Bacalareus, who 
 from the proximity of his birthplace to Bologna, 
 seems to have gained that devotion to the study of 
 the Law which he ultimately kindled in Oxford. 
 Lanfranc had lectured in logic; Vacarius lec- 
 tured in law. Bologna, which is celebrated in 
 history for its cultivation of this august science, 
 was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of 
 Universities, as far as historical evidence is to 
 decide the question. Its University was com- 
 menced a little later than the first years of the 
 School of Bee; and affords us an observable 
 instance, first, of the self- originating, indepen- 
 dent character of the scientific movement, — then, 
 
256 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 of the influence and attraction it exerted on the 
 people, — and lastly, of the incidental difficulties 
 through which it slowly advanced in the course 
 of many years to its completion. There Ir- 
 nerius, or Warner, according to Muratori, is 
 found at the end of the eleventh century, and 
 opened a school of civil law. In the next cen- 
 tury canon law was added ; in the first years of 
 the thirteenth, the school of grammar and lite- 
 rature ; and a few years later, those of theology 
 and medicine. Fifty years later, it had ten 
 thousand students under its teaching, numbers 
 of whom had come all across sea and moun- 
 tain from England; — so strong and encom- 
 passing was the sentiment. 
 
 And as Englishmen at that time sought Italy, 
 so, I say, did Vacarius in turn, a native of 
 Italy, seek England; Selden completes the 
 parallel between him and Lanfranc, by making 
 him Archbishop of Canterbury, after which he 
 retired again to Bee. However, to England he 
 came, and to Oxford; and there, he effected a 
 revolution in the studies of the place, and that 
 on the special ground of the definite drift and 
 direct usefulness of the science in which he was 
 a proficient. As in the case of Lanfranc, not 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 257 
 
 one class of persons, but *' rich and poor", says 
 Wood, " gathered around him". The professors 
 of Arts were thrown into the shade. Their 
 alarm was increased by the rival zeal with which 
 the medical science was prosecuted, and the 
 aspect of things got in course of years so threat- 
 ening, that the Holy See was obliged to inter- 
 fere. If knowledge is power, it also may be 
 honour and wealth ; hence the couplet, expres- 
 sive of the feeling of the day, 
 
 "Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores, 
 Sed Genus et Species, cogitur ire pedes". 
 
 It was indeed the Faculty of Arts which 
 constituted the staple, as it may be called, of a 
 University ; Arts, as seems to be commonly al- 
 lowed, constituted a University ; and by Arts are 
 understood the studies comprised in the Trivium 
 and Quadrivium, viz. (as I ought to have said 
 before), Grammar, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Logic, 
 Geometry, Astronomy, and Music. These wer~ 
 inherited from the ancient world, and were the 
 foundation of the system which was then in 
 course of formation. But the life of Universities 
 lay in the new sciences, not indeed superseding, 
 
 but presupposing Arts, viz., those of Theology, 
 
 17 
 
258 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 Law, Medicine, and in subordination to them, 
 of Metaphysics, Natural History, and the lan- 
 guages. I have been speaking of the law move- 
 ment, as it may be called; now, about the same 
 time that Vacarius came to Oxford, Robert 
 Pullus or Pulleyn came thither too from Exeter, 
 just about the time of St. Anselm, and gave the 
 same sort of impulse to biblical learning, which 
 Vacarius gave to law. " From his teaching", 
 says the Osney Chronicle, "the Church both in 
 England and in France gained great profit". 
 Leland says, that he lectured daily, "and left no 
 stone unturned to make the British youth 
 flourish in the sacred tongues". " Multitudes" 
 are said to have come to hear him, and his fame 
 spread to Rome, whither Pope Innocent the 
 Second sent for him. Celestine the Second 
 made him a Cardinal, and Lucius the Second 
 his Chancellor. He was an intimate friend of 
 St. Bernard's, and his influence extended to 
 Cambridge as well as to Paris. 
 
 At Cambridge the intellectual movement had 
 already commenced, and with similar phenomena 
 in its course. These points, indeed, are so en- 
 veloped in obscurity, and on the other hand so 
 intimately bearing on the sensibilities, now as 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 259 
 
 keen as ever, of rival schools, that I, who look 
 on philosophically, a member neither of Cam- 
 bridge nor of Oxford nor of Paris, " turban- 
 tibus tequora ventis", find it necessary to state 
 that, in what I shall say, I am determining 
 nothing to the prejudice of the antiquity or 
 precedence of any of those seats of learning. I 
 take the account given us by Peter of Blois, 
 merely as a specimen of the way in which the 
 present fabric of knowledge was founded and 
 reared, as a picture in miniature of the great 
 medieval revival, whatever becomes of its his- 
 torical truth. As a mere legend, it is sufficient 
 for my purpose ; for historical legends and fic- 
 tions are made according to what is probable, 
 and after the pattern of precedents. 
 
 The author, then, to whom I have referred, 
 says, that Jeoffred, or Goisfred, had studied at 
 Orleans; thence he came to Lincolnshire, and 
 became Abbot of Crowland ; whence he sent to 
 his manor of Cotenham, near Cambridge, four 
 of his French fellow-students and monks, one of 
 them to be Professor of sacred learning, the 
 rest teachers in Philosophy, in which they were 
 excellently versed. At Cambridge they hired 
 a common barn, and opened it as a School of 
 
260 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 the high Sciences. They taught daily. By 
 the second year the number of hearers was so 
 great, from town and country, "that not the 
 biggest house and barn that was", says Wood, 
 " nor any church whatsoever, sufficed to hold 
 them". They accordingly divided off into 
 several schools, and began an arrangement of 
 classes, some of which are enumerated. " Be- 
 times in the morning, brother Odo, a very good 
 grammarian and satirical poet, read grammar 
 to the boys, and those of the younger sort, 
 according to the doctrine of Priscian"; at one 
 o'clock " a most acute and subtle Sophist 
 taught the elder sort of young men Aristotle's 
 Logic"; at three o'clock, "brother William 
 read a lecture on Tully's Rhetoric and Quin- 
 tillian's Flores" ; — such was the beginning of the 
 University of Cambridge. And " Master Gisle- 
 bert upon every Sunday and Holyday, preached 
 the Word of God to the people" ; — such was the 
 beginning of its University Church. 
 
 It will be observed, that in these accounts, 
 Scripture comment is insisted on, and little or 
 nothing is said of Theology, properly so called. 
 Indeed, it was not till the next (the thirteenth) 
 century, that Theology took that place, which 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 261 
 
 Law assumed about a century before it. Then 
 it was that the Friars, especially the Dominicans, 
 were doing as much for Theology, as Irnerius, 
 Vacarius, and the Bolognese Professors did for 
 Law. They raised it (if I may so speak of 
 what is divine) to the dignity of a science. 
 " They had such a succinct and delightful 
 method", says Wood, speaking of them at Ox- 
 ford, "in the whole course of their discipline, 
 quite in a manner different from the sophistical 
 way of the Academicians, that thereby they did 
 not only draw to them the Benedictines and 
 Carthusians, to be sometimes their constant au- 
 ditors, but also the Friars of St. Augustine". 
 
 Here we have another exemplification of the 
 same great principles of the movement which we 
 have noticed elsewhere ; its teachers came from 
 afar, and they depended, not on kings and great 
 men for their support, but on the enthusiasm 
 they created. " The reputation of the school of 
 Paris 1 ', says Fleury, "increased considerably at 
 the commencement of the twelfth century under 
 William of Champeaux and his disciples at St. 
 Victor's. At the same time Peter Abelard came 
 thither and taught them with great eclat the 
 humanities and the Aristotelic philosophy. Al- 
 
262 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 beric of Rheims taught there also ; and Peter 
 Lombard, Hildebert, Robert Pullus, the Abbot 
 Rupert, and Hugh of St. Victor ; Albertus Mag- 
 nus also, and the Angelic Doctor". How few 
 of these professors at Paris were fellow-country- 
 men ! Albert was from Germany, St. Thomas 
 from Naples, Peter Lombard from Novara, Ro- 
 bert Pullus from Exeter in England. The case 
 had been the same three centuries before in the 
 same great school. Charlemagne brought Peter 
 of Pisa from Pavia for Grammar ; Alcuin from 
 England for Rhetoric and Logic ; Theodore and 
 Benedict from Rome for Music ; John of Mel- 
 rose, who was afterwards at the head of the 
 schools at Pavia, and Claudius Clemens, two 
 Scots, from Ireland. Ireland, indeed, contri- 
 buted a multitude of teachers to the continental 
 schools, and the more, because, great as was the 
 fame of its earlier schools, it had now no Univer- 
 sity of its own. The names of its professors 
 have not commonly been preserved, though 
 Erigena and Scotus by their very titles show 
 their origin : but we find that, when the Emperor 
 Frederick the Second would set up the Univer- 
 sity of Naples, he sent all the way to Ireland for 
 the learned Peter to be its first Rector; and an 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 263 
 
 author, quoted in Bulseus, speaks of " the whole 
 of Ireland, with its family of philosophers, despi- 
 sing the dangers of the sea ", and migrating to 
 the south. Such was the famous Richard of St. 
 Victor, whose very title marks his connexion 
 with the great school of Paris. 
 
 There is a force in the words, " despising the 
 dangers of the sea". We in this degenerate age 
 sometimes shrink from the passage between Ho- 
 lyhead and Kingstown, when duty calls for it ; 
 yet before steam-boats, almost before seaworthy 
 vessels, we find these zealous scholars, both Irish 
 and English, voluntarily exposing themselves to 
 the winds and waves, from their desire of im- 
 parting and acquiring knowledge. Not content 
 with one teacher, they went from place to place, 
 according as in each there was preeminence in a 
 particular branch of knowledge. We have in 
 St. Athanasius's life of St. Antony a beautiful 
 account of the diligence with which the young 
 hermit went about " like the bee", as his great 
 biographer says, in quest of superiority in va- 
 rious kinds of virtue. From one holy man, he 
 says (I quote from memory), the youth gained 
 courtesy and grace, from another gentleness, 
 from another mortification, from another hu- 
 
264 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 mility; and in a similar way did the knight 
 errants of science go about, seeking indeed 
 sometimes rivals to encounter, but more fre- 
 quently patterns and instructors to follow. As 
 then the legendary St. George or St. Denis 
 wandered from place to place to achieve feats of 
 heroism, as St. Antony or Sulpicius Severus 
 went about on pilgrimage to holy hermits, as St. 
 Gregory Nazianzen visited Greece, or St. Jerome 
 traversed Europe, and 'became, the one the most 
 accomplished theologian, the other the first Bi- 
 blical scholar of his age, so did the medieval 
 Doctors and Masters go the round of Universi- 
 ties in order to get the best instruction in every 
 school. 
 
 The famous John of Salisbury (as Mr. Sharon 
 Turner tells us) went to Paris for the lectures of 
 Abelard just on the death of Henry the First, 
 and with him he studied logic. Then for dia- 
 lectics he went to Alberic and to the English 
 Robert for two years. Then for three years to 
 William de Conchia for grammar ; afterwards to 
 Richard Bishop for a renewed study of grammar 
 and logic, going on to the Quadrivium ; and to 
 the German Harduin. Next he restudied rhe- 
 toric, which he had learned from Theodoric, and 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 265 
 
 more completely from Father Elias. Meanwhile, 
 he supported himself by teaching the children of 
 noble persons, and became intimate with Adam, 
 an Englishman, a stout Aristotelian, and re- 
 turned to logic with. William of Soissons and 
 Gilbert. Lastly, he studied theology with Ro- 
 bert Pulleyne or Pullus, already mentioned, and 
 Simon de Poissy. Thus he passed as much as 
 twelve years. Better instances, however, than 
 his, as introducing a wider extent of travel, are 
 those already referred to, of St. Thomas, or 
 Vacarius, of Lanfranc, St. Anselm, or John of 
 Melrose. 
 
 The ordinary course of study, however, lay 
 between the schools of Paris and Oxford, in 
 which was almost centered the talent of the age, 
 and which were united by the most intimate 
 connexion. Happy age, whatever its other in- 
 conveniences, happy so far as this, that religion 
 and science were then a bond of union, till the 
 ambition of monarchs and the rivalry of race 
 dissolved it ! Wood gives us a list of thirty- 
 two Oxford professors of name, who in their 
 respective times went to teach in Paris, among 
 whom were Alexander Hales, and the admirable 
 St. Edmund, afterwards Archbishop of Canter- 
 
266 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 bury, — St. Edmund, who, after St. Thomas, 
 perhaps shows us best how sanctity is not incon- 
 sistent with preeminence in the schools. On the 
 other hand, Bulseus recites the names of men, 
 even greater, viewed as a body, who went from 
 Oxford to Paris, not to teach, but to be taught; 
 such as St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Richard, 
 St. Gilbert of Sempringham, Giraldus Oam- 
 brensis, Gilbert the Universal, Haimo, Richard de 
 Barry, Nicholas Breakspeare, afterwards Pope, 
 Nekam, Morley, and Galfredus de Vinsalfe. 
 So intimate, or to use the word, so thick were 
 Paris and Oxford at this time, as to give occa- 
 sion to this couplet, 
 
 " Et procul et propius jam Erancus et Anglicus Eec[u£, 
 Norant Parisiis quid feceris, Oxoniseque". 
 
 And this continued till the time of Edward the 
 Third, when came the wretched French wars 
 and the Lollards, and then adieu to familiar 
 intercourse down to this day. 
 
 I have not found the number of students in 
 Paris ; but from what I have said, one is led to 
 expect two things of it, first, that it would be 
 very great, next, that it would be very variable : 
 and these inferences are confirmed by what is. 
 
THE SCHOOLMEN. 267 
 
 told us of the numbers at Oxford. In that 
 University we read of Scotch, Irish, Welsh, 
 French, Spanish, German, Bohemian, Hunga- 
 rian, and Polish students ; and, when it is con- 
 sidered, as a modern writer tells us, that they 
 would bring with them, or require for their 
 uses, a number of dependents in addition, such 
 as parchment-preparers, bookbinders, stationers, 
 apothecaries, surgeons, and laundresses, it is not 
 wonderful that the whole number of matricu- 
 lated persons was sometimes even marvellous, 
 and as fluctuating in a long period as excessive 
 at particular dates. We are told that there were 
 in Oxford in 1209 three thousand members of 
 the University, in 1231 thirty thousand, in 1263 
 fifteen thousand, in 1350 between three and four 
 thousand, and in 1360 six thousand. This 
 ebbing and flowing, moreover, suggests what it 
 is all along very much to my purpose to ob- 
 serve, and on which, if I have the opportu- 
 nity, I shall have more to say presently ; first, 
 that the zeal for study and knowledge is suffi- 
 cient indeed in itself for the being of a Univer- 
 sity ; but secondly, that it is not sufficient for its 
 well being, or what is technically called its in- 
 tegrity. 
 
268 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 The era of the French wars, which put an 
 end to this free intercourse of France and 
 England, seems for various reasons to have been 
 the beginning of a decline in the ecumenical 
 greatness of Universities. They lost some ad- 
 vantages, they gained others; they became 
 national bodies ; they gained much in the way 
 of good order and in comfort; they became 
 rich and honourable establishments. Each age 
 has its own character and its own wants: and 
 we trust that in each a loving Providence shapes 
 the institutions of the Church as they may best 
 subserve the objects for which she has been sent 
 into the world. We cannot tell exactly what 
 the Catholic University ought to be at this era; 
 doubtless neither the University of Scotus, nor 
 that of Gerson, in matters of detail ; but, if we 
 keep, great principles before us, and feel our 
 way carefully, and ask guidance from above for 
 . every step we take, we may trust to be able to 
 serve the cause of truth in our day and accor- 
 ding to our measure, and in that way which is 
 most expedient and most profitable, as our 
 betters did in ages past and gone. 
 
269 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FEOFESSORS AMD TUTORS. 
 
 I may seem in the foregoing chapter to have 
 relapsed into the tone of thought which created 
 some surprise when I was speaking of Athens 
 and the Sophists ; and my good friend Richard, 
 the Epicurean, may be upon me again, for my 
 worship, as he will consider it, of the intellect, , 
 and my advocacy of the Professorial System. 
 This is an additional call on me to go forward 
 with my subject, if I can do so without weary- 
 ing the reader. I say " without wearying", for 
 I beg to assure him, if he has not already found 
 it out for himself, that it is very difficult for any 
 one to discuss points of ancient usage or national 
 peculiarity, as I am doing, and to escape the 
 dry, dull tone of an antiquarian. This is so 
 acknowledged an inconvenience, that every now 
 and then you find an author attempting to evade 
 it by turning his book of learned research into 
 a novel or a poem. I will say nothing of 
 
270 PROFESSOES AND TUTORS. 
 
 Thalaba or Kehama, though the various learn- 
 ing displayed in the notes appended to those 
 pleasing fables, certainly suggests the idea, that 
 the poetry may have grown out of the notes, 
 instead of the notes being the illustration of the 
 poetry. However, I believe it is undoubted, 
 that Morier converted his unsaleable quarto on 
 Persia into his amusing Hadji Baba; while 
 Palgrave has poured out his medieval erudition 
 by the channels of Friar Bacon and Marco Polo, 
 and Bekker has insinuated archeology in the 
 persons of Charicles and Gallus. Were I to 
 attempt to do the same, whether for the group- 
 ing of facts or the relief of abstract discussion, 
 I have reason to believe I should not displease 
 men of great authority and judgment ; but for 
 success in such an undertaking there would be 
 demanded a very considerable stock of details, 
 and no small ability in bringing them to bear on 
 principles, and working them up into a narra- 
 tive. On the whole, then, I prefer to avail 
 myself, both as counsel and as comfort, of the 
 proverb, "Si gravis, brevis"; and to make it a 
 point, that, weary as my reader may be, he shall 
 not have time to go to sleep. And to-day espe- 
 cially, since I mean to be particularly heavy in 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. „ 271 
 
 the line of abstract discussion, I mean also to be 
 particularly short. 
 
 I purpose, then, to state here what is the 
 obvious safeguard of a University from the evils 
 to which it is liable if left to itself, or what may 
 be called, to use the philosophical term, its 
 integrity. By the " integrity" of anything is 
 meant a gift superadded to its nature, without 
 which that nature is indeed complete, and can 
 act, and fulfil its end, but does not find itself, if 
 I may use the expression, in easy circumstances. 
 It is in fact very much what easy circumstances 
 are in relation to human happiness. This re- 
 minds me of Aristotle's account of happiness, 
 which is an instance in point. He specifies two 
 conditions, which are required for its integrity ; 
 it is indeed a state of mind, and in its nature 
 independent of externals, yet he goes on (incon- 
 sistently we might say, till we make the dis- 
 tinction I am pointing out), he goes on, after 
 laying down that " man's chief good is an energy 
 of the soul according to virtue", to add, " besides 
 this, throughout the greater part of life, — for, as 
 neither one swallow, nor one day, makes a 
 spring, so neither does one day, nor a short 
 time, make a man blessed and happy". Here is 
 
272 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 one condition, which in one sense may be said to 
 fall under the notion of integrity ; but, whether 
 this be so or not, a second condition, which he 
 proceeds to mention, seems altogether to answer 
 to it. After repeating that " happiness is the 
 best and most noble and most delightful of 
 energies according to virtue", he adds : " at the 
 same time it seems to stand in need of external 
 goods, for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to 
 perform praiseworthy actions without external 
 means, for many things are performed, as it 
 were by instruments, by friends, and wealth, and 
 political power. But men deprived of some 
 things, as of noble birth, fine progeny, a fine 
 form, have a flaw in their happiness ; for he is 
 not altogether capable of happiness, who is 
 deformed in his body, or of mean birth, or 
 deserted and childless ; and still less so, perhaps, 
 if he have vicious children, or if they were dear 
 and dutiful, and have died. Therefore it seems 
 to demand such prosperity as this ; whence some 
 arrange good fortune in the same class with 
 happiness ; but others virtue". 
 
 • This then is how we may settle the dispute to 
 which my Epicurean alluded, and which has ' 
 been carried on at intervals in the British Uni- 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 273 
 
 versities for the last fifty years. It began in the 
 pages of the Edinburgh Keview, which at that 
 time might in some sense be called the organ of 
 the University of Edinburgh. Twenty years 
 later, if my memory does not play me false, it 
 was renewed in the same quarter ; then it was 
 taken up at Cambridge, and lately it was going 
 on briskly between some of the most able mem- 
 bers of the University of Oxford. Now what 
 has been the point of dispute between the com- 
 batants? This, whether a University should be 
 conducted on the system of Professors, or on the 
 system of Colleges and College Tutors. By a 
 College was understood something more than 
 the Museum of Alexandria, or such corporations 
 among ourselves, as are established for Medicine, 
 Surgery, Engineering, or Agriculture. It was 
 taken to mean a place of residence for the Uni- 
 versity student, who would there find himself 
 under the guidance and instruction of Superiors 
 and Tutors, bound to attend to his personal 
 interests, moral and intellectual. The party of 
 the North and of progress have ever advocated 
 the Professorial system, as it has been called, 
 and have pointed in their own behalf to the 
 
 practice of the middle ages and of modern Ger- 
 
 18 
 
274 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 many and France ; the party of the South and of 
 prescription have ever stood up for the Tutorial 
 or Collegiate system, and have pointed to Protes- 
 tant Oxford and Cambridge, where it has almost 
 or altogether superseded the Professorial. Now 
 I have on former occasions said enough to show 
 that I am for both views at once, and think 
 neither of them complete without the other. 
 I admire the Professor, I venerate the College. 
 The Professorial system fulfils the strict idea 
 of a University, and is sufficient for its being, 
 but it is not sufficient for its well-being. 
 Colleges constitute the integrity of a University. 
 This view harmonizes with what I said in a 
 former chapter, about Influence and Law; for 
 though Professors may be and have been utterly 
 without personal weight and persuasiveness, and 
 Colleges utterly forgetful of moral and religious 
 discipline, still, taking a broad view of history, 
 we shall find that Colleges are to be accounted 
 the maintainers of order, and Universities the 
 origins of movement. It coincides, too, with 
 the doctrine of a late Treatise on University 
 Education,* in which a Studium Generate is 
 
 * Newman's Discourses on the Scope and Nature of Uni- 
 versity Education. Dufly. 1852. 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 275 
 
 considered first in its own nature, then as it ex- 
 ists within the pale of Catholicism. " It is", the 
 author says, " a place of teaching universal 
 knowledge. Such is a University in its essence 
 and independently of its relation to the Church. 
 But, practically speaking, it cannot fulfil its 
 object duly without the Church's assistance, or 
 the Church is necessary for its integrity; not that 
 its main characters are changed by this incor- 
 poration; it still has the office of intellectual 
 education; but the Church steadies it in the 
 performance of that office". I say this passage 
 coincides with the statements I have been 
 making, because Colleges are the direct and 
 special instruments, which the Church uses in a 
 University, for the attainment of her sacred 
 objects, — as other passages of the same volume 
 incidentally teach. 
 
 Let us then bring the real state of the case 
 before our minds. A University is " a school of 
 knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers 
 and learners from every quarter". Two or 
 three learned men, with little or no means, 
 make their way to some great city. They 
 come with introductions to the Bishop, if there 
 is no University there yet, and receive his sane- 
 
276 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 tion, or they get the necessary leave, and then 
 on their own responsibility they open a school. 
 They may, or they may not be priests; but, 
 any how, they are men of correct principles, 
 in earnest, set on their work, and not careful of 
 their own ease or interest. They do not mind 
 where they lodge, or how they live, and their 
 learning, zeal, and eloquence soon bring hearers 
 to them, not only natives, but strangers to the 
 place, travelling thither from considerable dis- 
 tances, on the report of the teachers who have 
 there congregated. If the professors have but 
 scanty means, the pupils have not more abun- 
 dant ; and, in spite of their thirst for knowledge, 
 whatever it may be, they cannot have the staid- 
 ness and gravity of character, or the self-com- 
 mand, which years and experience have given to 
 their teachers. They have difficulty in finding 
 food or lodging, and are thrown upon shifts, and 
 upon the world, for both the one and the other. 
 Now, it must be an extraordinary excitement 
 which can save them from the consequences of a 
 trial such as this. They lodge in garrets or 
 cellars, or they share a room with others; they 
 mix with the inhabitants of the place, who, if 
 not worse, at least will not be better than the 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 277 
 
 run of mankind. A man must either be a saint 
 or an enthusiast to be affected in no degree by 
 the disadvantages of such a mode of living. 
 There are few people whose minds are not un- 
 settled on being thrown out of habits of regu- 
 larity ; few who do not suffer, when withdrawn 
 from the eye of those who know them, or from 
 the scrutiny of public opinion. How often does 
 a religious community complain, on finding 
 themselves in a new home, of the serious incon- 
 venience, in a spiritual point of view, which 
 attaches to the mere circumstance that they have 
 not an habitation suited to the rule which they 
 are bound to observe ! Without elbow room, 
 without order, without tranquillity, they grieve 
 to find that recollection and devotion have not 
 fair play. What, then, will be the case with a 
 number of youths of unformed minds, so little 
 weaned from the world that their very studies 
 are perhaps the result of their ambition, and who 
 are under no definite obligation to be better than 
 their neighbours, only bound by that general 
 Christian profession, which those neighbours 
 share with them ? The excitement of novelty or 
 emulation does not last long ; and then the mind 
 is commonly left a prey to its enemies, even 
 
278 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 when there is no such disarrangement of daily 
 life as I have been describing. It is not to be 
 expected that the Professor, whom they attend, 
 necessitous himself, can exercise a control over 
 such a set of pupils, even if he has any jurisdic- 
 tion, or can bring his personal influence to bear 
 upon any great number of them ; or that he can 
 see them beyond the hours in which the schools 
 are open, or, indeed, can do much more than de- 
 liver lectures in their presence. It is certain 
 then, that, in proportion to the popularity, 
 whether of the Professor or the place itself, 
 granting there will be numerous exceptions to 
 the contrary, a mob of lawless youths will gra- 
 dually be formed, after the pattern of the rioters 
 whom Eunapius encountered, and St. Basil es- 
 caped, at Athens. Nor will the state of things 
 be substantially different, even if we suppose 
 that, instead of the indigence I have described, 
 the frequenters of the schools have a compe- 
 tency for their maintenance ; much less, if they 
 have a superfluity of means. 
 
 To these disorders, which are of certain oc- 
 currence, others may easily be added. A 
 popular Professor will be carried away by his 
 success, and, in proportion as his learning is 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 279 
 
 profound, his talents ready, and his elocution 
 attractive, will be in danger of falling into some 
 extravagance of doctrine, or even of being be- 
 trayed into heresy. The teacher has his own 
 perils, as well as the taught; there are in his 
 path such enemies as the pride of intellect, the 
 aberrations of reasoning, and the intoxication of 
 applause. The very advantages of his position 
 are his temptation. I have spoken in a former 
 chapter of the superiority of oral instruction 
 to boohs, in the communication of knowledge ; 
 the following passage from an able contro- 
 versialist of the day, which is intended to illus- 
 trate that superiority, incidentally suggests to us 
 also, that, first, the speaker may suffer from the 
 popularity of his gift, and, then, the hearer from 
 its fascination. 
 
 " While the type", he says, "is so admirable a 
 contrivance for perpetuating knowledge, it is 
 certainly more expensive, and in some points of 
 view less effective as a means of communication, 
 than the lecture. The type is a poor substitute 
 for the human voice. It has no means of 
 arousing, moderating, and adjusting the atten- 
 tion. It has no emphasis except Italics, and 
 this meagre notation cannot finely graduate itself 
 
280 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 to the need of the occasion. It cannot in this 
 way mark the heed which should be specially 
 and chiefly given to peculiar passages or words. 
 It has no variety of manner and intonation, to 
 show by their changes how the words are to be 
 accepted, or what comparative importance is to 
 be attached to them. It has no natural music to 
 take the ear, like the human voice; it carries 
 with it no human eye to range, and to rivet the 
 student when on the verge of truancy, and to 
 command his intellectual activity by an appeal 
 to the courtesies of life. Half the symbolism 
 of a living language is thus lost, when it is com- 
 mitted to paper ; and that symbolism is the very 
 means by which the forces of the hearer's mind 
 can be best economized or most pleasantly ex- 
 cited. The lecture, on the other hand, as de- 
 livered, possesses all these instruments to win, 
 and hold, and harmonize attention; and above 
 all, it imparts to the whole teaching a human 
 character, which the printed book can never 
 supply. The Professor is the science or sub- 
 ject vitalized and humanized in the student's 
 presence. He sees him kindle into his subject; 
 he sees reflected and exhibited in him, his 
 manner, and his earnestness, the general power 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 281 
 
 of the science to engage, delight, and absorb a 
 human intelligence. His natural sympathy and 
 admiration attract or impel his tastes and feelings 
 and wishes for the moment into the same cur- 
 rents of feeling, and his mind is naturally and 
 rapidly and insensibly strung and attuned to the 
 strain of truth which is offered to him". 
 
 It needs not this elegant panegyric of an 
 Oxford Professor to inform us of the influence 
 which eloquence can exert over an audience ; I 
 quote it rather for its able analysis of that in- 
 fluence. I quote it, because it forcibly suggests 
 to the mind how fitted the talent is, first to exalt 
 the possessor in his own eyes, and then through 
 him to mislead his hearers. I will cap it, if I 
 may use the expression, with the following his- 
 tories or legends of the thirteenth century; — 
 " Simon of Tournay, a famous Parisian doctor, 
 one day proved in a lecture by such powerful 
 arguments, the divinity of Christianity, that his 
 school burst out into admiration of his ability. 
 On this he cried out, ' Ha, good Jesus ; I could, 
 if I chose, refute Thee quite as well' ". The 
 story goes on to say that he was instantly struck 
 dumb. A disciple of Silo, a professor of theo- 
 logy, died; after a while he returned to his 
 
282 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 master from the grave, invested in a cope of 
 fire, inscribed all over with philosophical theses. 
 A drop of his sweat fell upon the professor's 
 hand, and burned it through. This cope lay- 
 on him as a punishment for intellectual pride.* 
 
 Considerations such as this, are sufficiently 
 suggestive of the dangers of the Professorial 
 system ; it is obvious, however, to mention one 
 additional evil. We are supposing a vast influx 
 and congregation of young men, their own 
 masters, in a strange city, from countries various, 
 of different traditions, politics, and manners, 
 and which have often been at war with each 
 other. And they have come to attend lecturers 
 whom they are to choose out of a number of 
 able men, themselves of various countries and 
 characters too. Some of these Professors are 
 their own countrymen respectively, others are 
 not ; and all of them are more or less in rivalry 
 one with another, so far as their department of 
 teaching is the same. They will have their res- 
 pective gatherings, their respective hostilities; 
 many will puff them, many run them down; 
 
 * Vide Father Dalgairns's article in the British Critic, 
 Jan. 1843. 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 283 
 
 their countrymen, for the sake of " la belle 
 France", or " merry England", will range them- 
 selves on their side, and fight in their behalf. 
 Squabbles, conflicts, feuds, will be the conse- 
 quence; the peace of the University will be 
 broken, the houses will be besieged, the streets 
 will be impassable. Accustomed to brawls with 
 each other, they are not likely to be peaceable 
 with any third party ; they will find themselves 
 a match for the authority of Chancellor and 
 Rector ; nor will they scruple at compromising 
 themselves with the law, or even with the 
 government ; nay, with the Church, if her autho- 
 rities come in their way ; with the townspeople 
 of course — a sort of ready-made opponent. 
 The bells of St. Mary's and St. Martin's will 
 ring; out will rush from their quarters the 
 academic youth; and the smart blackguard of 
 the city, and the stout peasant from the neigh- 
 bourhood, will answer to the challenge. The 
 worse organized is a country, the greater of 
 course will be the disorder ; intolerable of course 
 in the middle ages ; in times such as these, the 
 magistracy or police would to a very con- 
 siderable extent keep under such manifestations ; 
 yet, in Germany, we are told that at least duels 
 
284 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 and party skirmishes are not uncommon, and 
 even within the very home and citadel of Order, 
 town-and-gown rows are not yet matters of 
 history in the English Universities. 
 
 Now, I have said quite enough for the pur- 
 pose of showing that, taking human nature as it 
 is, the thirst of knowledge and the opportunity 
 of quenching it, though these be the real life of 
 a great school of philosophy and science, will not 
 be sufficient in fact for its establishment; that 
 they will not work to their ultimate end, which 
 is the attainment and propagation of truth, 
 unless surrounded by influences of a different 
 sort, which have no pretension indeed to be the 
 essence of a University, but are conservative of 
 that essence. The Church does not think much 
 of any " wisdom", which is not " desursum", 
 that is, revealed; nor unless, as the Apostle 
 proceeds, it is " primum quidem pudica, deinde 
 pacifica". These may be called the three vital 
 principles of the Christian student, faith, chas- 
 tity, love ; because their contraries, viz., unbelief 
 or heresy, impurity, and enmity, are just the 
 three great sins against God, ourselves, and our 
 neighbour, which are the death of the soul: — 
 now, these are also just the three imputations 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 285 
 
 which I have been bringing against the inci- 
 dental action of what may be called the Pro- 
 fessorial system. 
 
 And lastly, obvious as are the deficiencies of 
 that system, as obvious surely is its remedy, as 
 far as human nature admits of one. I have 
 been saying that regularity, rule, respect for 
 others, the eye of friends and acquaintances, the 
 absence from temptation, external restraints 
 generally, are of first importance in protecting 
 us against ourselves. When a boy leaves his 
 home, when a peasant leaves his country, his 
 faith and morals are in great danger, both 
 because he is in the world, and also because he 
 is among strangers. The remedy, then, of the 
 perils which a University presents to the stu- 
 dent, is to create within it homes, " altera 
 Trojas Pergama", such as those, or better than 
 those, which he has left behind. Small com- 
 munities must be set up within its precincts, 
 where his better thoughts will find countenance, 
 and his good resolutions support; where his 
 waywardness will be restrained, his heedlessness 
 forewarned, and his prospective deviations anti- 
 cipated. Here, too, his diligence will be steadily 
 stimulated ; he will be kept up to his aim ; his 
 
286 PEOFESSOES AND TUTOES. 
 
 progress will be ascertained, and his week's 
 work, like a labourer's, measured. It is not easy 
 for a young man to determine for himself 
 whether he has mastered what he has been 
 taught; a careful catechetical training, and a 
 jealous scrutiny into his power of expressing 
 himself and of turning his knowledge to ac- 
 count, will be necessary, if he is really to profit 
 from the able Professors whom he is attending; 
 and all this he will gain from the College 
 Tutor. 
 
 Moreover, it has always been considered the 
 wisdom of lawgivers and founders, to find a safe 
 outlet for natural impulses and sentiments, 
 which are sure to be found in their subjects, and 
 which are hurtful only in excess ; and to direct, 
 and moderate, and variously influence what they 
 cannot extinguish. The story is familiarly told, 
 when a politician was talking of violently re- 
 pressive measures on some national crisis, of a 
 friend who was present, proceeding to fasten 
 down the lid of the kettle, which was hissing on 
 his fire, and to stop up its spout. Here, in like 
 manner, the subdivision of the members of a 
 University, while it breaks up the larger combi- 
 nation of parties, and makes them more manage- 
 
PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 287 
 
 able, answers also the purposes of providing a 
 safe channel for national, or provincial, or poli- 
 tical feeling, and for a rivalry which is whole- 
 some when it is not inordinate. These small 
 societies, pitted, as it were, one against another, 
 give scope to the exertion of an honourable emu- 
 lation; and this, while it is a stimulus on the 
 literary exertions of their respective members, is 
 changed from a personal and selfish feeling, into 
 a desire for the reputation of the body. Patri- 
 otic sentiment, too, here finds its home; one 
 college has a preponderance of members from 
 one race or locality, another from another ; the 
 " Nations" no longer fight on the academic 
 scene, like the elements in chaos ; they are sub- 
 mitted to these salutary organizations ; and the 
 love of country, without being less intense, 
 becomes purer, and more civilized, and more 
 religious. 
 
 My object at present is not to prove what I 
 have been saying, either by argument or from 
 history, but to suggest views to the reader 
 which he will pursue for himself. It may be 
 said that small bodies may fall into a state of 
 decay or irregularity, as well as large. It is 
 
288 PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. 
 
 true ; but that is not the question ; but whether 
 in themselves smaller bodies of students are not 
 easier to manage on the long run, than large 
 ones I should not like to do either ; but, if I 
 must choose between the two, I would rather 
 drive four-in-hand, than the fifty wild cows 
 which were harnessed to the travelling wagon 
 of the Tartars. 
 
289 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE STRENGTH AND "WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 ABELARD. 
 
 We can have few more apposite illustrations of 
 at once the strength and weakness of what may 
 be called the University principle, of what it 
 can do and what it cannot, of its power to 
 collect students, and its impotence to preserve 
 and edify them, than the history of the cele- 
 brated Abelard. His name is closely associated 
 with the commencement of the University of 
 Paris ; and in his popularity and in his reverses, 
 in the criticisms of John of Salisbury on his 
 method, and the protest of St. Bernard against his 
 teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what 
 a University professes in its essence, and what 
 it needs for its integrity. It is not to be sup- 
 posed, that I am prepared to show this here, as it 
 might be shown ; but it is a subject so pertinent 
 to the general object of these Essays, that it 
 
 may be useful to devote even a few pages to it. 
 
 19 
 
290 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on, 
 do but repeat the one message from above- 
 which they have ever uttered, since the tongues 
 of fire attested the coming of the Paraclete ; 
 still, as time goes on, they utter it with greater 
 force and precision, under diverse forms, with 
 fuller luminousness, and a richer ministration of 
 thought, statement, and argument. They meet 
 the varying wants, and encounter the special 
 resistance of each successive age; and, though 
 prescient of coming errors and their remedy 
 long before, they cautiously reserve their new 
 enunciation of the old Truth, till it is impe- 
 ratively demanded. And, as it happens in 
 kings' cabinets, that surmises arise, and rumours 
 spread, of what is said in council, and is in 
 course of preparation, and secrets perhaps get 
 wind, true in substance or in direction, though 
 distorted in detail; so too, before the Church 
 speaks, one or other of her forward children 
 speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate to a 
 certain point what she is about to say or enjoin, 
 he states it incorrectly, makes it error instead of ' 
 truth, and risks his own faith in the process. 
 Indeed, this is actually one source, or rather 
 concomitant, of heresy, that it is the misshapen, 
 
ABELARD. 291 
 
 huge, and grotesque foreshadow of true state- 
 ments which are to come. Speaking under 
 correction, I would apply this remark to the 
 heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may 
 be considered a reaction from existing errors, 
 and an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore 
 unsuccessful, to meet them with those divinely- 
 appointed correctives which the Church alone 
 can apply, and which she will actually apply, 
 when the proper moment comes. The Gnos- 
 tics boasted of their intellectual proficiency 
 before the time of St. Irenseus, St. Atha- 
 nasius, and St. Augustin; yet, when these 
 doctors made their appearance, I suppose they 
 were examples of a knowledge truer and deeper 
 than theirs. Apollinaris anticipated the work 
 of St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and 
 became a heresiarch in consequence ; and, to 
 come down to the present times, we may con- 
 ceive that writers, who have impatiently fallen 
 away from the Church, because she would not 
 adopt their views, would have found, had they 
 but trusted her, and waited, that she knew how 
 to profit by them, though she never could have 
 need to borrow her enunciations from them ; for 
 their writings contained, so to speak, truth in 
 
292 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 the ore, truth which they themselves had not the 
 gift to disengage from its foreign concomitants, 
 and safely use, which she alone could use, which 
 she would use in her destined hour, and which 
 became their scandal simply because she did not 
 use it faster. Now, applying this principle to 
 the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing 
 Abelard to be the first master of scholastic 
 philosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have 
 still no difficulty in condemning the author, 
 while we honour the work. To him is only the 
 glory of spoiling by his own self-will what would 
 have been done well and surely under the 
 teaching and guidance of Infallible Authority. 
 
 Nothing is more certain, than that some ideas 
 are consistent with one another, and others in- 
 consistent; and, again, that every truth must be 
 consistent with every other truth ; — hence, that 
 all truths of whatever kind form into one large 
 body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency 
 between one truth and another, which is the 
 connecting link running through them all. The 
 science which discovers this connection, is logic ; 
 and, as it discovers the connection when the 
 truths are given, so, having one truth given and 
 the connecting principle, it is able to go on to 
 
ABELARD. 293 
 
 ascertain the other. Though all this is obvious, 
 it was realized and acted on in the middle age 
 with a distinctness unknown before ; all subjects 
 of knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast 
 system, each with its own place in it, and from 
 knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed 
 always rightly inferred, because the art might 
 be less perfect than the science, the instrument 
 than the theory and aim ; but I am speaking of 
 the principle of the scholastic method, of which 
 Saints and Doctors were the teachers; — such I 
 conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated 
 logician who had a principal share in bringing it 
 into operation. 
 
 Others will consider the great St. Anselm and 
 the school of Bee, as the proper source of Scho- 
 lasticism ; I am not going to discuss the question ; 
 any how, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the 
 Professor at the University of Paris, and of 
 Universities I am speaking ; any how, Abelard 
 illustrates the strength and the weakness of the 
 principle of advertising and communicating 
 knowledge for its own sake, which I have called 
 the University principle, whether he is, or is not, 
 the first of scholastic philosophers or scholastic 
 theologians. And, though I could not speak 
 
294 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 of him at all without mentioning the subject of 
 his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him, and 
 of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak, 
 whatever that might be which he actually taught. 
 Since Charlemagne's time the schools of 
 Paris had continued, with various fortunes, 
 faithful, as far as the age admitted, to the old 
 learning, as other schools elsewhere, when, in 
 the eleventh century, the famous school of Bee 
 began to develop the powers of logic in forming 
 a new philosophy. As the inductive method 
 rose in Bacon, so did the logical in the medieval 
 schoolmen; and Aristotle, the most compre- 
 hensive intellect of Antiquity, as the one who 
 had conceived the sublime idea of mapping the 
 whole field of knowledge, and subjecting all 
 things to one profound analysis, became the pre- 
 siding master in their lecture halls. It was 
 at the end of the eleventh century that William 
 of Champeaux founded the celebrated Abbey 
 of St. Victor under the shadow of St. Gene- 
 vieve, and by the dialectic methods which he 
 introduced into his teaching, has a claim to have 
 commenced the work of forming the University 
 out of the Schools of Paris. For one at least, 
 out of the two characteristics of a University, 
 
ABELARD. 295 
 
 he prepared the way; for, though the schools 
 were not public till after his day, so as to admit 
 laymen as well as clerks, and foreigners as well 
 as natives of the place, yet the logical principle 
 of constructing all sciences into one system, 
 implied of course a recognition of all the 
 sciences that are comprehended in it. Of this 
 William of Champeaux, or de Campellis, Abe- 
 lard was the pupil ; he had studied the dialectic 
 art elsewhere, before he offered himself for bis 
 instructions; and, in the course of two years, 
 when as yet he had only reached the age of 
 twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be 
 capable of quarrelling with his master, and 
 setting up a school for himself. 
 
 This school of Abelard was first situated in 
 the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, 
 which was nearer to Paris, and where he at- 
 tracted to himself a considerable number of 
 hearers. His labours had an injurious effect 
 upon his health; and at length he withdrew 
 for two years to his native Britanny. Whether 
 other causes cooperated in this withdrawal, I 
 think, is not known ; but, at the end of the two 
 years, we find him returning to Paris, and 
 renewing his attendance on the lectures of 
 
296 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 William, who was by this time a monk. Ehe- 
 toric was the subject of the lectures he now 
 heard ; and after awhile the pupil repeated with 
 greater force and success his former treatment of 
 his teacher. He held a public disputation with 
 him, got the victory, and reduced him to silence. 
 The school of William was deserted, and its 
 master himself became an instance of the vicis- 
 situdes incident to that gladiatorial wisdom (as 
 I may style it) which was then eclipsing the 
 old Benedictine method of the Seven Arts. 
 After a time, Abelard found his reputation 
 sufficient to warrant him in setting up a school 
 himself on Mount St. Genevieve; whence he 
 waged incessant war against the unwearied logi- 
 cian, who by this time had rallied his forces to 
 repel the young and ungrateful adventurer who 
 had raised his hand against him. 
 
 Great things are done by devotion to one 
 idea; there is ofle class of geniuses, who would 
 never be what they are, could they perceive 
 two. The calm philosophical mind, which con- 
 templates parts without denying the whole, and 
 the whole without confusing the parts, is noto- 
 riously indisposed to action ; whereas single and 
 simple views arrest the mind, and hurry it on 
 
ABELARD. 297 
 
 to carry them out. Thus, men of one idea and 
 nothing more, whatever their merit, must be to 
 a certain extent narrow-minded; and it is not 
 wonderful that Abelard's devotion to the new 
 philosophy made him undervalue the Seven 
 Arts out of which it had grown. He felt it 
 impossible so to honour what was now to be 
 added, as not to dishonour what existed before. 
 He would not suffer the Arts to have their own 
 use, since he had found a new instrument for a 
 new purpose. So he opposed the reading of 
 the Classics. The monks had opposed them 
 before him; but this is little to our present 
 purpose ; it was the duty of men, who abjured 
 the gifts of this world on the principle of mor- 
 tification, to deny themselves literature just as 
 they would deny themselves particular friend- 
 ships or scientific music. The doctrine which 
 Abelard introduced and represents was founded 
 on a different basis. He did not recognize in 
 the poets of antiquity any other merit than that 
 of furnishing an assemblage of elegant phrases 
 and figures ; and accordingly he asks why they 
 should not be banished from the city of God, 
 since Plato banished them from his own com- 
 monwealth. The animus of this language is 
 
298 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 clear, when we turn to the pages of John of 
 Salisbury and Peter of Blois, who were cham- 
 pions of the ancient learning. We find them 
 complaining that the careful " getting up", as we 
 now call it, " of books", was growing out of 
 fashion. Youths once studied critically the text 
 of poets or philosophers; they got them by 
 heart; they analyzed their arguments; they 
 noted down their fallacies; they were closely 
 examined in the matters which had been 
 brought before them in lecture ; they composed. 
 But now, another teaching was coming in; 
 students were promised truth in a nutshell; 
 they intended to get possession of the sum-total 
 of philosophy in less than two or three years; 
 and facts were apprehended, not in their sub- 
 stance and details, by means of living and, as it 
 were, personal documents, but in dead abstracts 
 and tables. Such were the reclamations to 
 which the new Logic gave occasion. 
 
 These, however, are lesser matters ; we have 
 a graver quarrel with Abelard than that of his 
 undervaluing the Classics. As I have said, my 
 main object here is not what he taught, but why 
 and how, and how he lived. Now it is certain, 
 his activity was stimulated by nothing very 
 
ABELARD. 299 
 
 high, but by something very earthly and sordid. 
 I grant there is nothing morally wrong in the 
 mere desire to rise in the world, though Am- 
 bition and it are twin sisters. I should not 
 blame Abelard merely for wishing to distin- 
 guish himself at the University ; but when he 
 makes the ecclesiastical state the instrument of 
 his ambition, mixes up spiritual matters with 
 temporal, and aims at a bishopric through the 
 medium of his logic, he joins together things 
 incompatible, and cannot complain of being 
 censured. It is he himself, who tells us, unless 
 my memory plays me false, that the circum- 
 stance of William of Champeaux being pro- 
 moted to the see of Chalons, was an incentive 
 to him to pursue the same path with an eye 
 to the same reward. Accordingly, we next 
 hear of his attending the theological lectures of 
 a certain master of William's, named Anselm, 
 an old man, whose school was situated at Laon. 
 This person had a great reputation in his day ; 
 John of Salisbury, speaking of him in the next 
 generation, calls him the doctor of doctors; he 
 had been attended by students from Italy and 
 Germany ; but the age had advanced since he 
 was in his prime,, and Abelard was disappointed 
 
300 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 in a teacher, who had heen good enough for 
 William. He left Anselm, and began to lecture 
 on the prophet Ezekiel on his own resources. 
 
 Now came the time of his great popularity, 
 which was more than his head could bear; 
 which dizzied him, took him off his legs, and 
 whirled him to his destruction. I spoke in my 
 foregoing chapter of those three qualities of true 
 wisdom, which a University, absolutely and 
 nakedly considered, apart from the safeguards 
 which constitute its integrity, is sure to compro- 
 mise. Wisdom, says the inspired writer, is de- 
 sursum, is pudica, is pacifica, " from above, 
 chaste, peaceable". We have already seen 
 enough of Abelard's career to understand that 
 his wisdom, instead of being " pacifica", was 
 ambitious and contentious. An Apostle speaks 
 of the tongue both as a blessing and as a curse. 
 It may be the beginning of a fire, he says, a 
 " Universitas iniquitatis" ; and alas! such did it 
 become in the mouth of the gifted Abelard. 
 His eloquence was wonderful; he dazzled his 
 contemporaries, says Fulco, " by the brilliancy 
 of his genius, the sweetness of his eloquence, 
 the ready flow of his language, and the subtlety 
 of his knowledge". People came to him from 
 
ABELARD. 301 
 
 all quarters ; — from Rome, in spite of mountains 
 and robbers ; from England, in spite of the sea ; 
 from Flanders and Germany; from Normandy, 
 and the remote districts of France ; from Angers 
 and Poitiers; from Navarre by the Pyrenees, 
 and from Spain, besides the students of Paris 
 itself; and among those, who sought his instruc- 
 tions now or afterwards, were the great lumi- 
 naries of the schools in the next generation. 
 Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, 
 John of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and 
 Geoffrey of Auxerre. It was too much for a 
 weak head and heart, weak in spite of intellec- 
 tual power; for vanity will possess the head, 
 and worldliness the heart, of the man, however 
 gifted, whose wisdom is not an effluence of the 
 Eternal Light. 
 
 True wisdom is not only " pacifica", it is 
 " pudica" ; chaste as well as peaceable. Alas 
 for Abelard! a second disgrace, deeper than 
 ambition, is his portion now. The strong 
 man, — the Samson of the schools in the wild- 
 ness of his course, the Solomon in the fasci- 
 nation of his genius, — shivers and falls before 
 the temptation which overcame that mighty 
 pair, the most excelling in body and in mind. 
 
302 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 Desire of wine, and all delicious drinks, 
 Which many a famous warrior overturns, 
 Thou couldst repress ; nor did the dancing ruby 
 Sparkling outpour'd, the flavour or the smell, 
 Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men, 
 Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream. 
 But what avail'd this temperance, not complete, 
 Against another object more enticing? 
 What boots it at one gate to make defence, 
 And at another to let in the foe, 
 Effeminately vanquished ? 
 
 In a time when Colleges were unknown, and 
 the young scholar was commonly thrown upon 
 the dubious hospitality of a great city, Abelard 
 might even be thought careful of his honour, 
 that he went to lodge with an old ecclesiastic, 
 had not his host's niece Eloisa lived with him. 
 A more subtle snare was laid for him than beset 
 the heroic champion or the all-accomplished 
 monarch of Israel; for sensuality came upon 
 him under the guise of intellect, and it was the 
 high mental endowments of Eloisa, who became 
 his pupil, speaking in her eyes, and thrilling on 
 her tongue, which were the intoxication and the 
 
 delirium of Abelard 
 
 He is judged, he is punished ;— but he is not 
 reclaimed. True wisdom is not only " pacifica", 
 
ABELARD. 303 
 
 not only "pudica"; it is " desursum" too. It is 
 a revelation from above ; it knows heresy as little 
 as it knows strife or licence. But Abelard, who 
 had run the career of earthly -wisdom in two of 
 its phases, now is destined to represent its third. 
 It is at the famous Abbey of St. Denis that 
 we find him languidly rising from his dream of 
 sin, and the suffering that followed. The bad 
 dream is cleared away ; clerks come to him, and 
 the Abbot, — begging him to lecture still, for love 
 now, as for gain before. Once more his school 
 is thronged by the curious and the studious; 
 and at length a rumour spreads, that Abelard is 
 exploring the way to some novel view on the 
 subject of the Most Holy Trinity. Wherefore 
 is hardly clear, but about the same time the 
 monks drive him away from the place of refuge 
 he had gained. He betakes himself to a certain 
 cell, and his pupils follow him. " I betook 
 myself to a certain cell", he says, " wishing to 
 give myself to the schools, as was my custom. 
 Thither so great a multitude of scholars flocked, 
 that there was neither room to house them, nor 
 fruits of the earth to feed them". Such was the 
 enthusiasm of the student, such the attraction of 
 
304 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 the teacher, when knowledge was advertised 
 freely, and its market opened. 
 
 Next he is in Champagne, in a delightful 
 solitude near Nogent in the diocese of Troyes. 
 Here the same phenomenon presents itself, 
 which is so frequent in his history. " When 
 the scholars knew it", he says, " they began to 
 crowd thither from all parts ; and, leaving other 
 cities and strongholds, they were content to 
 dwell in the wilderness. For spacious houses 
 they framed for themselves small tabernacles, 
 and for delicate food they put up with wild 
 herbs. Secretly did they whisper among them- 
 selves : ' Behold, the whole world is gone out 
 after him !' When, however, my Oratory could 
 not hold even a moderate portion of them, then 
 they were forced to enlarge it, and to build it 
 up with wood and stone". He called the place 
 his Paraclete, because it had been his conso- 
 lation. 
 
 I do not know why I need follow his life 
 further. I have said enough to illustrate the 
 course of one, who may be called the founder, 
 or at least the first great name, of the Parisian 
 Schools. After the events I have mentioned he 
 
ABELARD. 305 
 
 is found in Lower Britanny ; then, being about 
 forty-eight years of age, in the Abbey of St. 
 Gildas ; then with St. Genevieve again. He 
 had to sustain the fiery eloquence of a Saint, 
 directed against him ; he had to present himself 
 before two Councils ; he had to burn the book 
 which had given offence to pious ears. His last 
 two years were spent at Clugni on his way to 
 Rome. The home of the weary, the hospital of 
 the sick, the school of the erring, the tribunal of 
 the penitent, is the city of St. Peter. He did 
 not reach it ; but he is said to have retracted 
 what had given scandal in his writings, and to 
 have made an edifying end. He died at the 
 age of sixty-two, in the year of grace 1142. 
 
 In reviewing his career, the career of so great 
 an intellect so miserably thrown away, we are 
 reminded of the famous words of the dying 
 scholar and jurist, which are a lesson to us all: 
 " Heu, vitam perdidi, operose nihil agendo". 
 A happier lot be ours ! 
 
 20 
 
3Q6 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. . 
 
 The most prominent distinction between the 
 primitive and the medieval schools, as I have 
 already many times said, was, that the latter had 
 a range and system in their subjects and the 
 manner of their teaching, which were unknown 
 to the former. The primitive schools, for in- 
 stance, lectured from Scripture with the com- 
 ments of the Fathers ; but the 1 medieval schools 
 created the science of theology. The primitive 
 schools collected and transmitted the canonical 
 rules and traditions of the Church ; the medieval 
 schools taught the science of canon law. And 
 so as regards secular studies, the primitive schools 
 professed the three sciences of grammar, rhe- 
 toric, and logic, which make up the Trivium, 
 and the four branches of the mathematics, arith- 
 metic, geometry, astronomy, and music, which 
 make up the Quadrivium. On the other hand, 
 the medieval schools recognized philosophy as a 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 307 
 
 cience of sciences, which included, located, 
 sonnected, and used all kinds and modes of 
 knowledge ; they enlarged the sphere and ap- 
 jlication of logic ; and they added civil law, 
 latural history, and medicine to the curriculum, 
 [t followed, moreover, from this, that while, 
 m the one hand, they were led to divide their 
 work among a number of Professors, they 
 jpened their doors on the other to laity as well 
 is clergy, and to foreigners as well as natives. 
 
 Of schools founded on this magnificent idea 
 md answering to a profession so comprehensive 
 ind so engrossing, there could be but a few 
 specimens ; for instance, Paris, Oxford, and 
 Bologna. These, too, owed their characteristic 
 splendour in no small measure to the zeal and 
 [earning of the Friars, especially the Domini- 
 cans; accordingly, their great era was the 
 thirteenth century. But various causes came 
 :nto operation to modify the University type, 
 as I have described it, or at least its applications 
 and manifestations, when that century had passed 
 away. The first movements of new agents, 
 both in the physical and social world, are com- 
 monly more energetic and more successful than 
 those which follow; and this remark includes 
 
308 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 both Universities themselves, and the religious 
 bodies which were their prominent supporters. 
 New orders of religion commonly achieve their 
 greatest works in their first fervour. The very 
 success too of the experiment would tend to 
 impair the University type by multiplying 
 copies of it ; for an imperial power (and a Uni- 
 versity was such in the intellectual world), 
 must be solitary to be imperial. As, then, the 
 utility of the new schools was recognized, they 
 became more numerous, and their respective 
 territories less extensive. Moreover, it was na- 
 tural, that, as country after country woke up 
 into existence and assumed an individuality, 
 each in turn should desire a University of its 
 own, that is, an institution indigenous and 
 national. Peace between states could not always 
 be maintained ; the elements were beyond the 
 traveller's control ; and a safe-conduct could not 
 secure the pilgrim scholar from bandits and 
 pirates. The mutual divergence and distinctive 
 formation of languages and of national character, 
 national histories, national pride, national anti- 
 pathies, would all carry forward the course of 
 events in the same direction ; and the Collegiate 
 system, of which I shall presently speak, coope- 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 309 
 
 rated in making a University a local institution, 
 and in embodying it among the establishments 
 of the nation. Hence it came to pass, that 
 Oxford, for instance, in course of time was not 
 exactly the Oxford of the thirteenth century. 
 Not that the great and primary idea of a Uni- \ 
 versity was not sufficiently preserved; it was 
 still a light set upon a hill, or a sort of ecume- 
 nical doctor on all subjects of knowledge, human 
 and divine ; but it was directed and coloured by 
 the political and social influences to which it 
 was accidentally exposed. This change began 
 about the commencement of the fourteenth 
 century ; however, I am not going to dwell 
 upon it here; for the foregoing reference 
 to it is only introductory to a short notice, 
 which I propose now to give, of the ancient 
 University of Dublin or of Ireland, set up at this 
 very era, — a subject to which the mind naturally 
 reverts just at this moment, when we are now 
 on the point of laying down the rudiments of 
 its revival or reconstruction upon the old foun- 
 dations, on a grander scale, and, as we trust and 
 believe, with a happier prospect for the future. 
 
 If by " University" is meant a large national 
 School, conducted on the basis of the old 
 
310 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Roman education, it was impossible that such 
 should not have existed in a people so literary 
 as the Irish, from the very time that St. Patrick 
 brought among them Christianity and civili- 
 zation. Accordingly, we hear of great seats of 
 learning of this description in various parts of 
 the country. The school of Armagh is said at 
 one time to have numbered as many as seven 
 thousand students ; and tradition assigns a Uni- 
 versity town to the locality where the Seven 
 Churches still preserve the memory of St. 
 Kevin. Foreigners, at least Anglo-Saxons, fre- 
 quented such schools, and, so far, they certainly 
 had a University character ; but that they offered 
 to their pupils more than the glosses on the 
 sacred text and the collections of canons, and the 
 Trivium and the Quadrivium, which were the 
 teaching of the schools of the Continent, it is 
 difficult to suppose; or that the national genius 
 for philosophising, which afterwards anticipated 
 or originated the scholastic period, should at 
 this era have come into exercise. When that 
 period came, the Irish, so far having its charac- 
 teristic studies already domiciled among them, 
 were forced to go abroad for their prosecution. 
 They went to Paris or to Oxford for the living 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 311 
 
 traditions, which are the ordinary means by 
 which religion and morals, science and art, are 
 diffused over communities, and propagated from 
 land to land. In Oxford, indeed, there was 
 from the earliest time even a street called 
 " Irishman's Street", and the Irish were included 
 there under the "Nation" of the Southern 
 English ; but they gained what they sought in 
 that seat of learning at the expense of discomforts ' 
 which were the serious drawback of the first 
 age of Universities. Lasting feuds and inces- 
 sant broils marked the presence of Irish, Welsh, 
 Scotch, English, and French in one place, at a 
 time when the Collegiate System was not 
 formed. To this great evil was added the very 
 circumstance that home was far away, and the 
 danger of the passage across the channel, which 
 would diminish the number, while it illustrated 
 the literary zeal, of the foreign students. And 
 an additional source of discontent was found in 
 the feeling of incongruity, that Ireland, with 
 her literary antecedents, should be without a 
 University of her own ; and, moreover, as time 
 went on, in the feeling which existed at Rome, 
 in favour of the multiplication of such centres of 
 science and learning. 
 
312 THE ANCIENT UNIVEESITT OE DUBLIN. 
 
 Another perfectly distinct cause was in opera- 
 tion, to which I was just now alluding. The 
 Dominicans, and other Orders of the age, had 
 had a preeminent place in the history of the 
 Universities of Paris and Oxford, and had done 
 more than any other teachers to give the know- 
 ledge taught in them their distinctive form. 
 When then these Orders came into Ireland, it 
 was only to be expected that they should set 
 about the same work there, which had marked 
 their presence in England and France. Ac- 
 cordingly, at the end of the thirteenth century, 
 the question of a University in Ireland had 
 been mooted, and its establishment was com- 
 menced in the first years of the fourteenth. 
 
 This was the date of the foundation of the 
 Universities of Avignon and Perugia, which 
 was followed by that of Cahors, Grenoble, Pisa, 
 and Prague. It was the date at which Oxford 
 in consequence lost its especial preeminence in 
 science ; and it was the date, I say, at which 
 the University of Dublin was projected and 
 begun. In 1311 or 1312, John Lech or Leach, 
 Archbishop of Dublin, obtained of Clement the 
 Fifth a brief for the undertaking ; in which, as 
 is usual in such documents, the Pope gives the 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 313 
 
 reasons which have induced him to decide upon 
 it. He begins by setting forth the manifold, or 
 rather complex, benefits of which a University 
 is the instrument; as father of the faithful, he 
 recognizes it as his office to nurture learned sons, 
 who, by the illumination of their knowledge, 
 may investigate the divine law, protect justice 
 and truth, illustrate the faith, promote good 
 government, teach the ignorant, confirm the 
 weak, and restore the fallen. This office he is 
 only fulfilling, in receiving favourably the sup- 
 plication of his venerable brother, John de 
 Lecke, who has brought before him the neces- 
 sities of his country, in which, as well as in 
 Scotland, Man, and Norway, the countries 
 nearest to Ireland, a " Universitas Scholarum", 
 or "Generale Studium", is not to be found; — the 
 consequence being, that though there are in 
 Ireland some doctors and bachelors in theology, 
 and other graduates in grammar, these are after 
 all few in comparison of the number which the 
 country might fairly produce. The Pope pro- 
 ceeds to express his desire, that from the land 
 itself should grow up men skilled and fruitful 
 in the sciences, who would make it to be a 
 well-watered garden, to the exaltation of the 
 
314 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Catholic faith, the honour of Mother Church, 
 and the advantage of the faithful population. 
 And with this view he erects in Dublin a Stu- 
 dium Generate in every science and faculty, to 
 continue for " perpetual times". 
 
 And, I suppose no greater benefit could have 
 been projected for Ireland at that date, than 
 such a bond of union and means of national 
 strength, as an Irish University. But the 
 parties, who had originated the undertaking, had 
 also to carry it out : and at the moment of which 
 I am speaking, by the fault neither of Prelate 
 nor laity, nor by division, nor by intemperance 
 or jealousy, nor by wrong-headedness within the 
 fold, nor by malignant interference from without, 
 but by the will of heaven and the course of 
 nature, the work was supended ; — for John de 
 Lecke fell ill and died the next year, and his 
 successor, Alexander de Bicknor, was not in 
 circumstances to take up his plans at the 
 moment, where de Lecke had left them. 
 
 Seven years passed ; and then he turned his 
 mind to their prosecution. Acting under the 
 authority of the brief of Clement, and with 
 the sanction and confirmation of the reigning 
 Pontiff, John the Twenty-second, he published 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 315 
 
 an instrument, in which he lays down on his 
 own authority the provisions and dispositions 
 which he had determined for the nascent Uni- 
 versity. He addresses himself to " the Masters 
 and Scholars of our University", and that " with 
 the consent and assent of our chapters of Holy 
 Trinity and St. Patrick". I think I am correct 
 in saying, though I write without book, that he 
 makes no mention of a Rector. If not, the 
 Chancellor probably, whom he does mention, 
 took his place, or was his synonyme, as in some 
 other Universities. This Chancellor the Regent 
 Masters were to have the privilege of choosing, 
 with a proviso that he was a " Doctor in sacra 
 pagina", or in "jure canonico", with a prefe- 
 rence of members of the two chapters. He 
 was to take the oath of fidelity to the Arch- 
 bishop. The Regent Masters elected the Proc- 
 tors also, who were two in number, and who 
 supplied the place of the Chancellor in his 
 absence. The Chancellor was invested with 
 jurisdiction over the members of the Univer- 
 sity, and had a court to which causes belonged 
 in which they were concerned. There was, 
 moreover, a University chest, supplied by means 
 of the fines which were the result of his de- 
 
316 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 cisions. Degrees were to be conferred upon 
 certificate of the Masters of the Faculty in 
 which the candidate was proceeding. Statutes 
 were to be passed by the Chancellor in council 
 of Masters Regent and Non-regent, subject to 
 the confirmation of the Archbishop. The 
 Schools of the Friars Preachers (or Dominicans) 
 and of the Minorites (or Franciscans) were re- 
 cognized in their connection with the Univer- 
 sity, the Archbishop reserving to himself the 
 right of appointing a Lecturer in Holy Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 Such was the encouraging and hopeful start of 
 the University; the Dean of St. Patrick was 
 advanced to the Doctorate in Canon Law, and 
 was created its first Chancellor ; its first Doctors 
 in Theology were two Dominicans and one 
 Franciscan. The Canons of the Cathedral seem 
 to have been its acting members, and filled the 
 offices of a place of education without pre- 
 judicing their capitular duties. However, it 
 soon appeared that there was somewhere a hitch, 
 and the work did not make progress. It has 
 been supposed with reason, that under the un- 
 happy circumstances of the time, the University 
 could not make head against the necessary diffi- 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 317 
 
 culties of a commencement. Another and more 
 definite cause which is assigned for the failure, 
 is the want of funds. The Irish people were 
 poor, and unable to meet the expenses involved 
 in the establishment of a great seat of learning, 
 at a time when other similar institutions already- 
 existed. The time had passed when Univer- 
 sities grew up out of the enthusiasm of teachers 
 and the curiosity and eagerness of students ; or, 
 if these causes still were in operation, they had 
 been directed and flowed upon seats of learning 
 already existing in other countries. It was the 
 age of national schools, of colleges and endow- 
 ments ; and, though the civil power appeared 
 willing to take its part in foundations of this 
 nature in behalf of the new undertaking, it did 
 not go much further than to enrich it now and 
 then with a stray lectureship, and wealthy 
 prelates or nobles were not forthcoming in that 
 age, capable of conceiving and executing works 
 in the spirit of Ximenes two centuries after- 
 wards in Spain. 
 
 Yet down to the very time of Ximenes, and 
 beyond it, continual and praiseworthy efforts 
 were made, on the part both of the Church and 
 of the State, to accomplish a work which was 
 
318 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 important in proportion to its difficulty. In 
 1358 the clergy and scholars of Ireland repre- 
 sented to Edward the Third the necessity under 
 which they lay of cultivating theology, canon 
 law, and the other clerical sciences, and the 
 serious impediments in the way of these studies 
 which lay in the expense of travel and the 
 dangers of the sea to those who had no Univer- 
 sity of their own. In answer to this request, the 
 king seems to have founded a lectureship in 
 theology ; and he indirectly encouraged the 
 University schools by issuing his letters-patent, 
 giving special protection and safe-conduct to 
 English as well as Irish, of whatever degree, 
 with their servants and attendants, their goods 
 and habiliments, in going, residing, and return- 
 ing. A few years later, in 1364, Lionel, Duke 
 of Clarence, founded a preachership and lecture- 
 ship in the Cathedral, to be held by an Augus- 
 tinian. 
 
 A further attempt in behalf of a University 
 was made a century later. In 1465, the Irish 
 Parliament, under the presidency of Thomas 
 Geraldine, Earl of Desmond, Vicegerent of 
 George, Duke of Clarence, Lieutenant of the 
 English King, had erected a University at 
 
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 319 
 
 Drogheda, and endowed it with the privileges of 
 the University of Oxford. This attempt, how- 
 ever, in like manner was rendered abortive by 
 the want of funds ; but it seems to have suggested 
 a new effort in favour of the elder institution at 
 Dublin, which at this time could scarcely be said 
 to exist. Ten years after the Parliament in 
 question, the Dominican and other Friars pre- 
 ferred a supplication to Pope Sixtus the Fourth, 
 in which they represent that in Ireland there is 
 no University to which Masters, Doctors of Law, 
 and Scholars may resort ; that it is necessary to 
 go to England at a great expense and peril ; and 
 consequently they ask for leave to erect a Uni- 
 versity in the metropolitan city. The Pope 
 granted their request, and, though nothing fol- 
 lowed, the attempt is so far satisfactory, as evi- 
 dencing the perseverance of the Irish clergy in 
 aiming at what they felt to be a benefit of su- 
 preme importance to their country. 
 
 Nor was this the last of such attempts, nor 
 were the secular behind the regular clergy in 
 zeal for a University. As late as the reign of 
 Henry the Seventh, in the year 1496, Walter 
 Fitzsimon, Archbishop of Dublin, in provincial 
 Synod, settled an annual contribution to be 
 
320 THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 levied for seven years in order to provide salarie 
 for the Lecturers. And, though we have no re 
 cord, I believe, of the effect of this measure, yet 
 when the chapter was reestablished in the reigi 
 of Philip and Mary, the allusion made in th< 
 legal instrument to the loss which the youthfu. 
 members of society had sustained in its suppres 
 sion, may be taken to show, that certain benefits 
 had resulted from its chairs, though the educa 
 tion which they gave was not of that charactei 
 which the name of a University demanded. 
 
 Times are changed since these attempts were 
 made; and, while the causes no longer exisl 
 which operated in their failure, the object to- 
 wards which they were directed has attained a 
 moment, both in itself and inr its various bear- 
 ings, which could never have been predicted in 
 the fourteenth or the sixteenth century. Ireland 
 is no longer the conquered possession of a 
 foreign king ; it is, as in the primitive times, the 
 centre of a great Catholic movement and of a 
 world-wide missionary enterprise. Nor does the 
 Holy See simply lend an ear to the project oi 
 others : it originates the undertaking. 
 
321 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 COLLEGES THE CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 OXFORD. 
 
 Colleges, and Colleges for the advancement of 
 science, were not altogether a medieval idea. 
 To say nothing else, it is obvious to refer to the 
 Museum of the Ptolemies at Alexandria, of 
 which I spoke in an earlier chapter. The Sara- 
 cens too founded Colleges for learned education 
 at Cordova, Granada, and Malaga ; and these ob- 
 tained a great reputation. Yet it is an idea, 
 which has been brought out, and familiarized to 
 history, and recognized in political institutions, 
 and completed in its parts, during the era of 
 Universities, with a fulness which almost allows 
 us to claim it as belonging to the new civili- 
 zation. By a College, I suppose, is meant, not 
 merely a body of men living together in one 
 dwelling, but belonging to one establishment. 
 In its very notion, the word suggests to us 
 position, authority, and stability; and again, 
 
 21 
 
322 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 these attributes presuppose a foundation; and 
 that foundation consists either in public recog- 
 nition, or in the possession of revenues, or in 
 some similar advantage. If two or three indivi- 
 duals live together, the community is not at 
 once called a College ; but a charter, or an en- 
 dowment, some legal status, or some ecclesias- 
 tical privilege, is necessary to erect it into the 
 Collegiate form. However, it does, I suppose, 
 imply a community or convitto too ; and, if so, 
 it must be of a certain definite size : for, as soon 
 as it exceeds in point of numbers, non-residence 
 may be expected to follow. It is then a house- 
 hold, and offers an abode to its members, and 
 requires or involves the same virtuous and 
 paternal discipline which is proper to a family 
 and home. Moreover, as no family can subsist 
 without a maintenance, and as children are de- 
 pendent on their homes, so it is not unnatural that 
 an endowment, which is, as I have said, suggested 
 by the very idea of a College, should ordinarily 
 be necessary for its actual carrying out. Still 
 more necessary are buildings, and buildings of a 
 prominent character ; for, whereas every family 
 must have its dwelling, a family which has a 
 recognized and official existence, must live in 
 
OXFORD. 323 
 
 a sort of public building, which satisfies the eye, 
 and is the enduring habitation of an enduring 
 body. 
 
 This view of a College, which I have not 
 been attempting to prove but to delineate, 
 suggests to us the objects which a College is 
 adapted to fulfil in a University. It is all, and 
 does all, which is implied in the name of home. 
 Youths, who have left the paternal roof, and 
 travelled some hundred miles for the acquisition 
 of knowledge, find an " altera Troja" and " si- 
 mulata Pergama" at the end of their journey 
 and in their place of temporary sojourn. Home 
 is for the young, who know nothing of the 
 world, and who would be forlorn and sad, if 
 thrown upon it. It is the refuge of helpless 
 boyhood, which would be famished and pine 
 away, if it were not maintained by others. It 
 is the providential shelter of the weak and 
 inexperienced, who have to learn as yet to cope 
 with the temptations which lie outside of it. 
 It is the place of training for those who are not 
 only ignorant, but have not yet learned how to 
 learn, and who have to be taught, by careful 
 individual trial, how to set about profiting by 
 the lessons of a teacher. And it is the school 
 
324 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 of elementary studies, not of advanced; for 
 such studies alone at best can boys apprehend 
 and master. Moreover, it is the shrine of our 
 best affections, the bosom of our fondest recol- 
 lections, a spell upon our after life, a stay for 
 world-weary mind and soul, wherever we are, 
 till the end comes. Such are the attributes or 
 offices of home, and like to these, in one or 
 other sense and measure, are the attributes and 
 offices of a College in a University. 
 
 We may consider, historically speaking, that 
 Colleges were but continuations, mutatis mu- 
 tandis, of the schools which preceded the rise of 
 Universities. These schools indeed were mo- 
 nastic or at least clerical, and observed a reli- 
 gious or an ecclesiastical rule ; so far they were 
 not simple Colleges, still they were devoted to 
 study, and, at least sometimes, admitted laymen. 
 They had two courses of instruction going on at 
 once, attended by the inner classes and the 
 outer ; of which the latter were filled by what 
 would now be called externs. Thus even in 
 that early day the school of Bheims educated a 
 certain number of noble youths; and the same 
 arrangement is reported of Bee also. 
 
 And in matter of fact these monastic schools 
 
OXFORD. 325 
 
 remained ■within the limits of the University, 
 when it was set up, as they had been before, 
 only of course more exclusively religious; for, 
 as soon as the reception of laymen was found to 
 be a part of the academical idea, the monasteries 
 seemed to be relieved of the necessity of re- 
 ceiving lay students within their walls. At 
 first, those bodies only would have a place in 
 the University which were already there ; but 
 in process of time nearly every religious fra- 
 ternity found it its interest to provide a College 
 for its own subjects, and to have representatives 
 in the Academical body. Thus in Paris, as 
 soon as the Dominicans and Franciscans had 
 thrown themselves into the new system, and had 
 determined that their vocation did not hinder 
 them from taking degrees, the Cistercians, under 
 the headship of an Englishman, founded a 
 College near St. Victor's ; and the Premonstrants 
 followed their example. The Carmelites, being 
 at first at a distance from St. Genevieve, were 
 planted by a king of France close under her 
 hill. The Benedictines were stationed in the 
 famous Abbey of St. German, near the Uni- 
 versity Pratum; the monks of Clugni and of 
 Marmoutier had their respective houses also, 
 
326 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 and the former provided lecturers within their 
 walls for the students. And in Oxford, in like 
 manner, the Benedictines founded Durham Hall 
 for their monks of the North of England, and 
 Gloucester Hall for their monks of the South, 
 on the respective sites of the present Trinity 
 and Worcester Colleges. The Carmelites (to 
 speak without book), were at Beaumont, the 
 site of Henry the First's palace; and St. 
 John's and Wadham Colleges are also on 
 the sites of monastic establishments. Besides 
 these, there were in Oxford houses of Do- 
 minicans, Franciscans, Cistercians, and Augus- 
 tinians. 
 
 These several foundations, indeed, are of 
 very different eras ; but, looking at the course of 
 the history as a whole, we shall find that this 
 class of scholastic houses preceded the rest. 
 And if the new changes had stopped there, lay 
 education would have suffered, not gained, by 
 the rise of Universities; for it had the effect 
 of multiplying, indeed, monastic halls, but of 
 shutting their doors against all but monks more 
 rigidly than before. The solitary strangers, 
 who came up to Paris or Oxford from a far 
 country, must have been stimulated by a most 
 
OXFOKD. 327 
 
 1 
 
 uncommon thirst for knowledge, to persevere in 
 spite of the discouragements by which they 
 were surrounded. Some attempt indeed was 
 made by the Professors to meet so obvious and 
 so oppressive an evil. The former scholastic 
 type had recognized one master, and one only, 
 in a school, who professed in consequence the 
 whole course of instruction without any assis- 
 tant Tutors. The tradition of this system con- 
 tinued ; and led in many instances to the for- 
 mation of halls, inns, courts, or hostels, as they 
 were variously called. That is, the Professor of 
 the school kept house, and boarded his pupils. 
 Thus we read of Torald schools in Oxford in 
 the reign of Henry the Third, which had be- 
 longed previously to one Master Richard Bacum, 
 who had fitted up a large tenement, partly for 
 lodging house, partly for lecture rooms. In 
 like manner, early in the twelfth century, 
 Theobald had as many as from sixty to a hun- 
 dred scholars under his tuition, for whom he 
 would necessarily be more or less answerable. 
 A similar custom was pointed out in Athens, in 
 an early chapter of this volume, where it was 
 the occasion of a great deal of rivalry and can- 
 vassing between the Professorial housekeepers, 
 
328 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 each being set upon obtaining as many lodgers 
 as possible. And apparently a similar incon- 
 venience bad to be checked at Paris in the 
 thirteenth century, though, whatever might be 
 the incidental inconvenience, the custom itself, 
 under the circumstances of the day, was as ad- 
 vantageous to the cause of study, as it was 
 natural and obvious. 
 
 But still lodging keepers, though Professors, 
 must be paid, and how could poor scholars find 
 the means of fulfilling so hard a condition ? And 
 the length of time required for a University 
 course hindered an evasion of its difficulties by 
 such shifts and expedients, as serve for passing 
 a trying crisis or weathering a threatening 
 season. The whole course, from the termi- 
 nation of the grammatical studies to the licen- 
 tiate, extended originally through twenty years; 
 though afterwards it was reduced to ten. If we 
 are to consider the six years of the course in 
 Arts to have been independent of this long 
 space, the residence at the University is no 
 longer a sojourn at the seat of learning, but 
 becomes a sort of naturalization, yet without 
 offering a home. 
 
 The University itself had little or no funds, 
 
OXFORD. 329 
 
 to meet the difficulty withal. At Oxford, it 
 had no buildings of its own, but rented such as . 
 were indispensable for academical purposes, and 
 these were of a miserable description. It had 
 little or no ground belonging to it, and no 
 endowments. It had not the means of being 
 an Alma Mater to the young men who came 
 thither for education. Some verses are quoted 
 by Antony a Wood, apropos of the poor 
 scholar, which describe both his enthusiastic 
 love of study and the trial to which it was put. 
 The following is a portion of them : — 
 
 Parva domus, res ipsa minor, contraxit utrumque 
 Immensus tractusque diu sub Pallade fervor, 
 Et logices jucundus amor . . . 
 
 Pauperies est tota domus, desuevit ad illos 
 Ubertas venisse lares ; nee visitat Eegrum 
 Copia Parnassum ; sublimior advolat aulas, 
 His ignota casis. 
 
 Accordingly, one of the earliest movements 
 in the University, almost as early as the en- 
 trance into it of the monastic bodies, was that of 
 providing maintenance for poor scholars. The 
 authors of such charity hardly aimed at giving 
 more than the bare necessaries of life, — food, 
 lodging, and clothing, — so as to make a life of 
 
330 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 study possible. Comfort or animal satisfaction 
 can hardly be said to have entered into the 
 scope of their benefactions ; and we shall gain a 
 lively impression of the sufferings of the unaided 
 student, by having a sketch presented to us of 
 his rude and hardy life even when a member of 
 a College. From an account which has been 
 preserved in one of the Colleges of Cambridge, 
 we are able to extract the following horarium 
 of a student's day. He got up between four 
 and five ; from five to six he assisted at Mass, 
 and heard an exhortation. He then studied or 
 attended the schools till ten, which was the 
 dinner hour. The meal, which seems also to 
 have been a breakfast, was not sumptuous; 
 it consisted of beef, in small messes for four 
 persons, and a pottage made of its gravy and 
 oatmeal. From dinner to five p.m., he either 
 studied, or gave instruction to others, when he 
 went to supper, which was the principal meal 
 of the day, though scarcely more plentiful than 
 dinner. Afterwards, problems were discussed 
 and other studies pursued, till nine or ten ; and 
 then half an hour was devoted to walking 
 or running about, that they might not go 
 to bed with cold feet; — the expedient of 
 
OXFORD. 331 
 
 hearth or stove for the purpose was out of the 
 question. 
 
 However, poor as was the fare, the collegiate 
 life was a blessing in many other ways far more 
 important than meat and drink; and it was 
 the object of pious benefactions for centuries. 
 Hence the munificence of Robert Capet, as 
 early as 1050, even before the canons of St. 
 Genevieve and the monks of St. Victor had 
 commenced the University of Paris. His foun- 
 dation was sufficient for as many as one hun- 
 dred poor clerks. Another was St. Catherine 
 in the Valley, founded by St. Louis, in conse- 
 quence of a vow, which his grandfather, Philip 
 Augustus, had died before executing. Another 
 and later was the College Bonorum Puerorum, 
 which is assigned to the year 1245. Such too, 
 in its original intention, was the Harcurianum, 
 or Harcourt College, the famous College of 
 Navarre, the more famous Sorbonne, and the 
 Montague College. 
 
 These Colleges, as was natural, were often 
 provincial or diocesan, being founded by bene- 
 factors of a particular locality for their own 
 people. Sometimes too they were connected 
 with one or other of the Nations of the Uni- 
 
332 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 versity; I think the Harcurianum, just men- 
 tioned, was founded for the Normans ; such too 
 was the Dacian, founded for the Danes ; and the 
 Swedish; to which may be added the Burses 
 provided for the Italians, the Lombards, the 
 Germans, and the Scotch. In Bologna there 
 was the greater College of St. Clement for the 
 Spaniards, and the Collegio Sondi for the Hun- 
 garians. As to Diocesan or Provincial Colleges, 
 such was Laon College, for poor scholars of 
 the diocese of Laon; the College of Bayeux, 
 for scholars of the dioceses of Mons and Angers ; 
 the Colleges of Narbonne, of Arras, of Lisieux, 
 and various others. Such too in Oxford at 
 present are Queen's College, founded in favour 
 of north countrymen, and Jesus College for the 
 Welsh. Such are the fellowships, founded in 
 various Colleges, for natives of particular coun- 
 ties; and such the fellowships or scholarships 
 for founder's kin. In Paris, in like manner, 
 Cardinal de Dormans founded a College for 
 more than twenty students, with a preference in 
 favour of his own family. A Society of a 
 peculiar kind was founded in the very begin- 
 ning of the thirteenth century. Baldwin, Count 
 of Flanders, at that time Emperor of Constan- 
 
OXFORD. 333 
 
 tinople, is said to have established a Greek 
 College with a view to train up the youth of 
 Constantinople in devotion to the Holy See. 
 
 When I said that there were graver reasons 
 than the need of maintenance, for establishing 
 Colleges and Burses for poor scholars, it may be 
 easily understood that I alluded to the moral 
 evils, of which a University, without homes and 
 guardians for the young, would infallibly be the 
 occasion and the scene. These are so intelli- 
 gible, and so much a matter of history, and so 
 often illustrated, whether from the medieval or 
 the modern continental Universities, that they 
 need not occupy our attention here. Whatever 
 licentiousness of conduct there is at Oxford and 
 Cambridge now, where the Collegiate system is 
 in force, does but suggest to us how fatal must 
 be the strength of those impulses to disorder 
 and riot when unrestrained, which are so im- 
 perfectly controlled even when submitted to 
 an anxious discipline. Leaving this head of 
 the subject, I think it better to turn to the con- 
 sideration of an important innovation on the 
 character and drift of academical foundations, 
 which took place in the fifteenth century, when 
 political changes in the nations of Europe 
 
334 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 brought with them corresponding changes in 
 their Universities. 
 
 I have lately alluded to these changes in 
 introducing the subject of the ancient Univer- 
 sity of Ireland. I said that the multiplication 
 of Universities, the growth of nationalism, the 
 increasing appreciation of peace and of the 
 conveniences of life, the separation of languages, 
 the Collegiate system itself, and similar and 
 cognate causes, tended to give these institutions 
 a local, political, and, I may now add, aristo- 
 cratic character. At first Universities were al- 
 most democracies: Colleges tended to break 
 their anarchical spirit, introduced ranks and 
 gave the example of laws, and trained up a set 
 of students, who, as being morally and intellec- 
 tually superior to other members of the aca- 
 demical body, became the depositaries of aca- 
 demical power and influence. Moreover, lear- 
 ning was no longer thought unworthy of 
 a gentleman; and, though the nobles of an 
 earlier period had not disdained to send their 
 sons to Lanfranc or Vacarius, yet now it 
 became a matter of custom, that young men of 
 rank should have a University, education. Thus, 
 
OXFORD. 335 
 
 even in the charter of the 29th of Edward the 
 Third, we read that " to the University a mul- 
 titude of nobles, gentry, strangers, and others 
 continually flock" ; and towards the end of the 
 century, we find Henry of Monmouth, after- 
 wards the Fifth, as a young man, a sojourner at 
 Queen's College, Oxford. But it was in the 
 next century, of which Henry has made glo- 
 rious the first years, that Colleges were pro- 
 vided, not for the poor, but for the noble. 
 Many Colleges too, which had been originally 
 for the poor, opened their gates to the rich, not 
 as fellows or foundation-students, but as simple 
 lodgers, or what are now called independent 
 members, such as monasteries might have re- 
 ceived in a former age. This was especially the 
 case with the College of Navarre at Paris ; and 
 the change has continued remarkably impressed 
 upon Oxford and Cambridge even down to 
 this day, with this additional peculiarity, that, 
 while the influence of aristocracy upon those 
 Universities is not less than it was, the influence 
 of other political classes has been introduced 
 into the academic cloisters also. Never has 
 learned institution been more directly political 
 and national than the University of Oxford. 
 
336 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 Some of its Colleges represent the talent of the 
 nation, others its rank and fashion, others its 
 wealth; others have been the organs of the 
 government of the day ; while others, and the 
 majority, represent one or other division, chiefly 
 local, of the country party. That all this has 
 rather destroyed, than subserved, the University 
 itself, which Colleges originally were instituted 
 to complete, I will not take upon myself to 
 deny; but good comes out of many things 
 which are in the way to evil, and this anta- 
 gonism of the Collegiate to the University prin- 
 ciple was not worked out, till Colleges had first 
 rendered signal service to the University, and 
 that, not only by completing it in those points 
 where the University was weak, but even cor- 
 roborating it in those in which it was strong. 
 The whole nation, brought into the University 
 by means of the Colleges, gave the University 
 itself a vigour and a stability which the abundant 
 influx of foreigners had not been able to secure. 
 As in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 French, German, and Italian students had 
 flocked to the University of Oxford, and made 
 its name famous in distant lands, so in the 
 fifteenth, all ranks and classes of the nation 
 
OXFORD. 337 
 
 furnished it with pupils, and what was wanting 
 in their number or variety, compared with the 
 former era, was compensated by their splendour 
 or political importance. At that time nobles 
 moved only in state, and surrounded themselves 
 with retainers and servants, with an ostentation 
 which has now quite gone out of fashion. A 
 writer, whom I have from time to time used, 
 Huber, informs us, that, before the wars of the 
 Roses, and when the aristocracy were more 
 powerful than the king, each noble family sent 
 up at least one son to Oxford with an ample 
 retinue of followers. Nor were the towns in 
 that age, less closely united to the University 
 than the upper class, by reason of the numbers 
 that belonged to the clergy, the popular cha- 
 racter of that institution, and its intimate con- 
 nection, as now, with the seat of learning. 
 Thus town and country, high and low, north 
 and south, had a common state in the aca- 
 demical institutions, and took a personal interest 
 in the academical proceedings. The degree 
 possessed a sort of indelible character, which all 
 classes understood ; and the people at large were 
 more or less partakers of a cultivation which the 
 aristocracy were beginning to enjoy. And, 
 
338 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 though railroad travelling certainly did not then 
 exist, communication between the students and 
 their homes occurred with a frequency which 
 could not be when they came from abroad ; and 
 Oxford became in a peculiar way a national 
 and political centre. Not only in vacations and 
 term-time was there a stated ebbing and flowing 
 of the academical youth, but messengers posted 
 to and fro between Oxford and all parts of the 
 country in all seasons of the year. So intimate 
 was this connection, that Oxford became a sort 
 of selected arena for the conflicts of the various 
 interests of the nation, and a serious University 
 strife was received far and wide as the presage 
 of civil war. 
 
 " Chronica si penses, cum pugnant Oxonienses, 
 Post paucos menses, volat ira per Angliginenses". 
 
 One may admire the position of a University, 
 as a national centre, without any desire of re- 
 newing, in this day or in Ireland, the particular 
 mode in which that position was in former 
 times manifested in England. Such an united 
 action of the Collegiate and of the National 
 principle, far from being prejudicial, was simply 
 favourable to the principle of a University. It 
 
OXFORD. 339 
 
 was a later age which sacrificed the University 
 to the College. We must look to the last two 
 or three centuries if we would witness the ascen- 
 dency of the College idea in the English 
 Universities, to the extreme prejudice, not 
 indeed of its own peculiar usefulness (for that it 
 has retained), but of the University itself. The 
 author,* who gives us the above account of 
 Oxford, and who is neither Catholic on the one 
 hand, nor innovator on the existing state of 
 things on the other, warming yet saddening at 
 his own picture, ends by observing: "Those 
 days never can return; for the plain reason 
 that then men learned and taught by the living 
 word, but now by the dead paper". 
 
 What has been here drawn out from the 
 history of Oxford, admits of ample illustration 
 from the parallel history of Paris. We find 
 Chancellor Gerson on one occasion remon- 
 strating in the name of his University with the 
 French king. " Shall the University", he says, 
 " being what she is, shut her eyes and be silent? 
 
 * Huber. Additional matter on the subject of Universities 
 and Colleges will be found in Dr. Pusey's Collegiate and 
 Professorial Teaching, and Mr. Buckingham's Bible in the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
340 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 What should all France say, whose population 
 she is ever exhorting, by means of her members, 
 to patience and good obedience to the king and 
 rulers? Does not she represent the universal 
 realm, nay, the whole world? She is the 
 vigorous seminary of the whole body politic, 
 whence issue men of every kind of excellence^ 
 Therefore in behalf of the whole of France, of 
 all states of men, of all her friends, who cannot 
 be present here, she ought to expostulate and 
 cry, '' Long live the king' ". 
 
 There is one other historical peculiarity at^ 
 tached to Colleges, to which I will briefly allude 
 before concluding. If Colleges, with their en- 
 dowments and local interests, provincial or 
 county, are necessarily, when compared with 
 Universities, of a national character, it follows 
 that the education which they will administer, 
 will also be national, and adapted to all ranks 
 and classes of the community. And if so, then 
 again it follows, that they will be far more 
 given to the study of the Arts than to the 
 learned professions, or to any special class of 
 pursuits at all ; and such in matter of fact has 
 ever been the case. They have inherited under 
 
OXFORD. 341 
 
 changed circumstances the position of the mo- 
 nastic teaching founded by Charlemagne, and 
 have continued its primitive tradition, through, 
 and in spite of, the noble intellectual develop- 
 ments, to which Universities have given occa- 
 sion. The historical link between the Monas- 
 teries and the Colleges have been the Nations, 
 as some words of Antony a Wood about the 
 latter suggest, and as the very name of " Nation" 
 mates probable ; and indeed the Colleges were 
 hardly more than the Nations formally estab- 
 lished and endowed, with Provosts and Wardens 
 in the place of Proctors. 
 
 Bulasus has some remarks on the subject of 
 Colleges, which illustrate the points I have last 
 insisted on, and several others which have 
 already come before us. He says: "The Col- 
 lege system had no slight influence in restoring 
 Latin composition. Indeed Letters were publicly 
 professed in Colleges, and that, not only by 
 persons on the foundation, but by others also 
 who lived within the walls, though external to 
 the body, and who were admitted to the schools 
 of the Masters and to the classes in a fixed 
 order and by regulated steps. On the contrary, 
 we find that all the ancient Colleges were 
 
342 COLLEGES CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 established for the education and instruction of 
 poor scholars, members of the foundation; but 
 in the fifteenth century other ranks were gra- 
 dually introduced also. By this means the 
 lecturer was stimulated by the largeness of the 
 classes, and the pupil by emulation, while the 
 opportunities of a truant life were removed. 
 Accordingly laws were frequently promulgated 
 and statutes passed, with a view of bringing the 
 Martinets and wandering scholars within the 
 walls of the Colleges. We do not know exactly 
 when this practice began ; it is generally thought 
 that the College of Navarre, which was re- 
 formed in the year 1464, was the first to open 
 its gates to these public professors of letters. It 
 is certain, that in former ages the teachers of 
 grammar and rhetoric had schools of their own, 
 or hired houses and hostels, where they received 
 pupils ; but in this century teachers of grammar, 
 or of rhetoric, or of philosophy, began to teach 
 within the Colleges". He adds that in the time 
 of Louis the Eleventh, the Professors who lec- 
 tured on literature, rhetoric, and philosophy in 
 the town, were generally left by the students 
 for those who had taken up their abodes in the 
 Colleges. 
 
OXFORD. 343 
 
 This is rather an enumeration of some charac- 
 teristics of Colleges, than a sufficient sketch 
 of their relation to the University ; hut it may 
 suggest points of inquiry to those who would 
 know more. I will but add, that at Paris there 
 seem to have been as many as fifty Colleges ; at 
 Oxford at present there are from twenty to 
 twenty-four; as many, I believe, were at Sala- 
 manca ; at Cambridge not so many ; at Toulouse, 
 eight. As to Louvain, I have been told that if 
 a bird's-eye view be taken of the city, the 
 larger and finer buildings which strike the 
 beholder throughout it, will be found at one 
 time to have belonged to the University. 
 
344 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 OXFORD. 
 
 If what has been said in former chapters of 
 this volume upon the relation of a University to 
 its Colleges, be in the main correct, the dif- 
 ference between the two institutions, and the 
 use of each, is very clear. A University em- 
 bodies the principle of progress, and a College 
 that of stability; the one is the sail, and the 
 other the ballast; each is insufficient in itself 
 for the pursuit, extension, and inculcation of 
 knowledge; each is useful to the other. A 
 University is the scene of enthusiasm, of plea- 
 surable exertion, of brilliant display, of winning 
 influence, of diffusive and potent sympathy; 
 and a College is the scene of order, of obe- 
 dience, of modest and persevering diligence, of 
 conscientious fulfilment of duty, of mutual 
 private services, and deep and lasting attach- 
 ments. The University is for the world, and 
 
OXFORD. 345 
 
 the College is for the nation. The University 
 is for the Professor, and the College for the 
 Tutor; the University is for the philosophical 
 discourse, the eloquent sermon, or the well- 
 contested disputation; and the College for the 
 catechetical lecture. The University is for 
 theology, law, and medicine, for natural history, 
 for physical science, and for the sciences gene- 
 rally and their promulgation ; the College is for 
 the formation of character, intellectual and 
 moral, for the cultivation of the mind, for the 
 improvement of the individual, for the study of 
 literature, for the classics, and those rudimental 
 sciences which strengthen and sharpen the 
 intellect. The University being the element 
 of advance, will fail to make good its ground 
 as it goes; the College, from its conservative 
 tendencies, will be sure to go back, because it 
 does not go forward. It would seem as if an 
 University, seated and living in Colleges, would 
 be a perfect institution, as possessing excel- 
 lences of opposite kinds. 
 
 But such a union, such salutary balance and 
 mutual complement of opposite advantages, is of 
 difficult and rare attainment. At least the 
 present day rather gives us instances of the two 
 
346 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 antagonistic evils, of naked Universities and 
 naked Colleges, than of their alliance and its 
 benefits. The great seats of learning on the 
 Continent, to say nothing of those in Scotland, 
 show us the need of Colleges to complete the 
 University; the English, on the contrary, show 
 us the need of a University to give life to 
 an assemblage of Colleges. The evil of a Uni- 
 versity, standing by itself, as in Germany, is 
 often insisted on and may readily be appre- 
 hended ; and therefore, leaving that part of the 
 subject alone, I will say a few words on the 
 state of things in England, where the action of 
 the University is suspended, and the Colleges 
 have supreme and sovereign authority. 
 
 At the Reformation, the State not only made 
 itself the head of the Anglican Church, but 
 resolved to suppress, or nearly so, its legal 
 existence. It not only ignored the idea of a 
 central authority in Christendom ; but it went 
 very far towards ignoring the existence of a 
 Church in England itself. I believe I am right 
 in saying that the Church of England, as such, 
 scarcely has a legal status. Its Bishops indeed 
 are Peers of Parliament, its chapters have 
 charters, its Rectors are corporations sole, its 
 
OXFOKD. 347 
 
 ministers are officers of the law, its fabrics have 
 special rights, its courts have a civil position 
 and functions, its Prayer-book is (as has been 
 observed) an Act of Parliament; but, as far as I 
 know, there is no corporation of the United 
 Church of England and Ireland, though that 
 title itself be a legal one. The Protestant 
 Church, as such, holds no property, and exer- 
 cises no functions. It is an aggregate of many 
 thousand corporations professing one object, and 
 moulded on a common rule. The nearest ap- 
 proach to corporate power lay in its Convo- 
 cations, which were at least three in number, 
 not one, — those of Canterbury, of York, and of 
 Dublin; and these have been virtually long 
 obsolete. The Protestant Church would be an 
 imperium in imperio, considering the immense 
 wealth, power, and influence of its constituent 
 members, were it itself a corporation. 
 
 The same spirit which destroyed the legal 
 incorporation of the religious principle, was the 
 jealous enemy also of the incorporation of the 
 intellectual ; and the civil power could as little 
 bear a University as it bore a Church. Accor- 
 dingly, Oxford and Cambridge shared the fate 
 of the Hierarchy ; the component parts of those 
 
348 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 Universities were preserved, but they them- 
 selves were superseded; and there would be 
 almost as great difficulties now in Protestant 
 England, in restoring its Universities to their 
 proper place, as in restoring its Church. It 
 is true, that the Colleges themselves are impor- 
 tant political bodies, independent of the civil 
 power ; but at the same time they are national 
 bodies; they represent not the human mindj 
 but sections of the political community; and 
 the civil power is itself nothing else than an 
 expression of national power in one or other of 
 its aspects; whereas a University is an intel- 
 lectual power, as such, just as the Church is a 
 religious power. Intellect, as well as Faith and 
 Conscience, are authorities simply independent 
 of State and Nation ; State and Nation are but 
 different aspects of one and the same power: 
 and thus the State and Nation will endure chap- 
 ters and colleges, as they bear city companies 
 and municipalities, but not a Church, not a Uni- 
 versity. On the other hand, considering the 
 especially popular character of the English con- 
 stitution, and how congenial to it is the existence 
 of organs of public opinion and of representative 
 bodies, it is not wonderful that the Collegiate 
 
OXFORD. 349 
 
 system has not merely remained in these later 
 centuries, but has been cherished and advanced. 
 I am not denying this political value of the 
 Colleges as counterpoises to the government of 
 the day. The greatest weight has actually been 
 given to their acts and decisions in this point 
 of view. Oxford has been made the stage on 
 which political questions have been tried, and 
 political parties have carried on their contests. 
 This was particularly instanced at the time of 
 that famous Session of Parliament, in which 
 Catholic Emancipation was granted. It is well 
 known that the king then on the throne was 
 averse to the measure ; and it was felt that an 
 adhesion to it on the part of the University 
 would exert a material influence on his feelings ; 
 and the question to be determined was what 
 opinion had the University upon it. In the 
 summer of 1828, Sir Robert Peel is said to 
 have consulted* those who were most intimately 
 in his confidence in Oxford, as to the effect 
 which would be produced upon its members 
 by a ministerial project in favour of Catholics. 
 
 * Since this was written, Sir E. Peel's narrative has been 
 given to the world, which seems to contain nothing inconsis- 
 tent with it. 
 
350 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 His friends belonged to a section of the Univer- 
 sity, who lived very much in their own circle ; 
 and who, as resting both on academical dis- 
 tinction and connection with the great world, 
 did not know, and did not represent, the senti- 
 ments of the Colleges. Accordingly, drifting 
 with the tide of London opinion themselves, 
 which the necessities of the state and the con- 
 venience of the Government, and Parliamentary 
 agitation, had for some time made more and 
 more favourable to Emancipation, those con- 
 siderable persons returned for answer, that the 
 important act might be passed any day, and that 
 men would go to bed and rise again, without 
 being at all the wiser or more anxious for what 
 had taken place. The Minister seems to have 
 committed himself to this opinion ; and, in con- 
 sequence, confident of a successful issue of the 
 experiment, he took a bold, and as it turned 
 out, an unlucky step. Member for the Uni- 
 versity as he was, and elected on the very 
 ground of his opposition to the Catholic claims, 
 he resolved on resigning his seat, and presenting 
 himself for reelection, with an avowed change 
 of opinions. He did this, or at least his friends 
 for him, under the conviction that his trium- 
 
OXFORD. 351 
 
 pliant appeal to the votes of the academical 
 constituency, on which he reckoned, would be 
 the best evidence to his Master that the feeling 
 of the country had undergone that revolution 
 which had already, openly or secretly, taken 
 place among statesmen. And hence the ex- 
 traordinary vehemence of the contest which 
 followed ; the country party, whom the Colleges 
 represented, being confident of swaying the 
 determination of the king and ejecting the 
 minister from office, if they managed to eject 
 him from the representation. 
 
 Political importance is of course the protec- 
 tion of those who possess it. They who can 
 do so much for or against a Minister, can do as 
 much for themselves; and in consequence, the 
 Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are perhaps 
 the best protected interests in the whole country. 
 They have endured the most formidable attacks, 
 without succumbing. It was against the wall 
 of Magdalen College, as it has been expressed, 
 that James the Second ran his head. That 
 College received the brunt of the monarch's 
 attack, and in the strength of the nation re- 
 pelled it. Twenty years ago, when Reform 
 was afloat, when boroughs were disfranchised, 
 
352 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 corporations created, sees united, dioceses re- 
 arranged, chapters remodelled, church property 
 redistributed, and every parsonage perplexed 
 with parliamentary papers of inquiry and tables 
 of returns, the Colleges alone escaped. A de- 
 termined attack was made upon them by the 
 Ministry of the day, and great apprehensions 
 were excited in the minds of their members. 
 However, calm, perhaps selfish, calculators at 
 Oxford said: "Nothing can touch us; the Es- 
 tablishment will go, but not the Colleges" : and 
 certainly after one or two sessions, after strong 
 speeches in Parliament from Secretaries of State 
 and experimentalists in Education, and commit- 
 tees, gatherings, and manifestoes on the part of 
 the members of Colleges, it was owned by friends 
 of Government, that its attempt upon them was 
 a mistake and a failure, and the sooner Govern- 
 ment gave it up, the better for Government. 
 There is no political power in England' like a 
 College in the Universities; it is not a mere 
 local body, as a corporation or London com- 
 pany; it has allies in every part of the- country; 
 When the mind is most impressible, when the 
 affections are warmest, when associations are 
 made for life, when the character is most in- 
 
OXFORD. 353 
 
 genuous and the sentiment of reverence is most 
 powerful, the future landowner, or statesman, or 
 lawyer, or clergyman comes up to a College in 
 the Universities. There he forms friendships, 
 there he spends his happiest days; and, whatever 
 is his career there, brilliant or obscure, virtuous 
 or vicious, in after years, when he looks back on 
 the past, he finds himself bound by ties of grati- 
 tude and regret to the memories of his College 
 life. He has received favours from the Fellows, 
 he has dined with the Warden or Provost ; he 
 has unconsciously imbibed to the full the beauty 
 and the music of the locale. The routine of 
 duties and observances, the preachings and the 
 examinations and the lectures, the dresses and 
 the ceremonies, the officials whom he feared, the 
 buildings or gardens that he admired, rest upon 
 his mind and his heart, and their shade becomes 
 a sort of shrine to which he makes continual 
 silent offerings of attachment and devotion. It 
 is a second home, not so tender, but more noble 
 and majestic and authoritative. Through his 
 life he more or less keeps up a connection with 
 it and its successive sojourners. He has a 
 brother or intimate friend on the foundation, or 
 
 he is training up his son to be a member of it. 
 
 23 
 
354 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 When then he hears that a blow is levelled at 
 the Colleges, and that they are in commotion, — 
 that his own College, Head and Fellows, have 
 met together, and put forward a declaration 
 calling on its members to come up and rally 
 round it and defend it, a chord is struck within 
 him, more thrilling than any other; he burns 
 with esprit de corps and generous indignation; 
 and he is driven up to the scene of his early 
 education, under the keenness of his feelings, to 
 vote, to sign, to protest, to do just what he is 
 told to do, from confidence in the truth of the 
 representations made to him, and from sympathy 
 with the appeal. He appears on the scene of 
 action ready for battle on the appointed day, 
 and there he meets others like himself, brought 
 up by the same summons ; he gazes on old faces, 
 revives old friendships, awakens old reminis- 
 cences, and goes back to the country with the 
 freshness of youth upon him. Thus, wherever 
 you look, to the North or South of England, to 
 the East or West, you find the interest of the 
 Colleges dominant; they extend their roots all 
 over the country, and can scarcely be overturned, 
 certainly not suddenly overturned, without a 
 revolution. 
 
OXFORD. 355 
 
 The consequences on the Colleges themselves 
 are not satisfactory. They are withdrawn in an 
 especial way from the action and the influence 
 of public opinion, than which there is no greater 
 stimulant to right action, as things are, nor a more 
 effective security against dereliction of duty. 
 The Colleges, left to themselves, in the course of 
 last century became shamefully indolent and 
 inactive. They were in no sense any longer 
 places of education; they were for the most 
 part mere clubs, and sinecures, and almshouses, 
 where the inmates did little but enjoy them- 
 selves. They did next to nothing for the 
 youth confided to them ; suffered them to follow 
 their own ways and enjoy their own liberty, 
 and often in their own persons set them a very 
 bad example of using it. Visitor they prac- 
 tically had none ; and there was but one power 
 which could have exerted authority over them, 
 and most naturally and suitably too; I mean 
 the University; but the University could do 
 nothing. The University had no means of act- 
 ing upon the Colleges; it was but a name or a 
 privilege ; it was not a body or a power. This 
 seems to me the critical evil in the present 
 state of the- English Universities, not that the 
 
356 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 Colleges are strong, but that the University has 
 no practical or real jurisdiction over them. 
 Over the members of Colleges it has juris- 
 diction, but even then, not as such, but because 
 they are its own members also ; over the Head 
 of the College, over the Fellows, over the cor- 
 porate body, over its property, over its officers, 
 over its acts and regulations within its own 
 precincts, it has no practical jurisdiction at all. 
 The Tutor indeed is a University office by the 
 Statutes, but the College has made it its own. 
 
 In matter of fact the only mode of affecting 
 the Colleges has been by the gradual stress of 
 persevering efforts, by incessant agitation, and 
 by improving the tone and enlightening the 
 minds of their members: by indirect means 
 altogether. At the beginning of this century, 
 when matters were at the worst at Oxford, some 
 zealous persons attempted to bring the Univer- 
 sity to bear upon the Colleges. The degrees 
 were at that time taken upon no bona fide 
 examination. The youth, who had passed his 
 three or four years at the place, and wished to 
 graduate, chose his examiners, and invited them 
 to dinner, which the ceremony of examination 
 preceded. Now a degree is a University, not a 
 
OXFORD. 357 
 
 College distinction; and the admirable persons, 
 to whom I have alluded, made an effort to 
 restore to the University the power and the 
 practice of insisting on a real examination into 
 the proficiency of every one of its members, 
 who was a candidate for it. Could there be a 
 case in which the right of the University was 
 more clear? It gave a privilege, and, one 
 might surely think, had a right to lay down the 
 conditions of giving it. Yet it could not in 
 fact exact of its members, what was so impera- 
 tively its duty, and so natural. The Colleges 
 had first to be persuaded to concede, what the 
 University was so reasonable in requiring. 
 What took place in detail, has never perhaps 
 been published to the world: so much, however, 
 is notorious, that for thirty years one College, 
 by virtue of ancient rights, was able to stand 
 out against the University, and demanded and 
 obtained degrees for its junior members without 
 examination. A generation passed, before its 
 Fellows, acted on by the example and sympa- 
 thizing in the sentiments of the academical 
 society around them, consented to do for them- 
 selves what the University had in vain attempted 
 to do for them. 
 
358 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 The University has thus gradually progressed 
 ever since that time; not indeed towards the 
 recovery of that power of jurisdiction, which 
 properly belongs to it, but in separate and par- 
 ticular measures of improvement. One measure 
 was attempted nearly thirty years ago, by an 
 eminent person, still alive, and well known in 
 Dublin, and was thwarted by parties who are 
 long dead ; so that it may be alluded to without 
 pain to any one. There are at Oxford several 
 Societies or Houses, which have practically the 
 rank and rights of Colleges, though they have 
 not the legal status, or the property. Some 
 of these at that date supported themselves by 
 taking members, who, either would not be re- 
 ceived, or had actually been sent away, by the 
 Colleges. The existence then of these Societies 
 mainly depended on the sufferance within the 
 University of incompetent, idle, or riotous 
 young men. As they had no endowments, they 
 asked high terms for admission, which of course 
 they could not fail in obtaining from those, who 
 needed to be in some Society or other, with 
 a view to academical advantages, and who could 
 not secure a place in any other body. Evi- 
 dently, nothing would have been more fatal 
 
OXFORD. 359 
 
 to such establishments than any successful effort 
 to purify the University of unworthy members. 
 Now, in the gradual advance of reforms, it was 
 attempted by the able person I speak of to intro- 
 duce an examination of all members on their 
 matriculation. But the independence and the 
 interests of the Colleges and other Houses were 
 at once touched by such a proposition ; and a 
 vigorous opposition was set on foot, in particular 
 by the Head of one Society, wbich abounded in 
 gownsmen of the unsatisfactory character I have 
 been describing. Of course he might as well 
 have shut up his Hall at once, and taken lodg- 
 ings in High Street, as consent to a measure 
 which would have simply cut off the supply 
 from which it was filled. The private interest 
 prevailed over the public; and to this day, 
 though separate Colleges properly insist on the 
 fitting qualifications in the case of those who 
 are to be admitted to their Lectures, the Uni- 
 versity itself is not allowed to exercise its rea- 
 sonable right of examining its members before 
 it matriculates them. 
 
 The late Act of Parliament affords but a 
 fresh illustration of the foregoing remarks. It 
 did not dare to touch the real seat of existing 
 
360 ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 evils, by restoring or giving jurisdiction to the 
 University over the Colleges, much as it pro- 
 fessed to effect in the way of radical reform. 
 And in the passage of the Bill through the 
 House of Commons, unless I am mistaken, 
 Ministers found it impossible to get beyond that 
 part of it which related to University alterations. 
 As soon as it went on to legislate for the 
 Colleges, the opposition was too strong for them, 
 and the whole subject was postponed by Par- 
 liament, and made over for the consideration of 
 a small Commission, with so many checks and 
 limitations upon its proceedings, that there is 
 reason for fearing that, whatever comes of them, 
 the University will not be less enslaved by the 
 Collegiate interest than it is at present. 
 
361 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES: 
 l'ecole DES HADTES ETUDES. 
 
 No two institutions are more distinct from each 
 other in character, than Universities and Semi- 
 naries; and their very difference might seem 
 a pledge that they would not come into col- 
 lision with each other. Seminaries are for 
 the education of the clergy; Universities for 
 the education of laymen. They are for separate 
 purposes, and they act in separate spheres ; yet, 
 such is human infirmity, perhaps they ever will 
 he rivals in their actual working. So at least 
 it has been in time past. Universities grew 
 out of the Episcopal Schools; and then, as 
 time went on, they returned evil for good, and 
 gradually broke the strength, and drained away 
 the life of the institution which had given them 
 birth ; an institution too, which was of far more 
 importance to the Church than themselves. 
 Universities are ornaments indeed and bulwarks 
 
362 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 to Religion ; but Seminaries are essential to its 
 purity and efficiency. It is plain then, if the 
 action and interests of the two institutions have 
 conflicted, which side the Church would take 
 in the quarrel. She would side for the injured 
 party, against the aggressor ; for the party more 
 important to her, against the party less so. Uni- 
 versities then for a long season have been sus- 
 taining the punishment of past ambition ; and it 
 seems hardly right to close the volume without 
 saying a few words about them under this aspect. 
 As Seminaries are so necessary to the Church, 
 they are one of her earliest appointments. 
 Scarcely had the New Dispensation opened, 
 when, following the example of the Schools 
 of the Temple and of the Prophets under the 
 Old, St. John is recorded, over and above the 
 public assemblies of the faithful, to have had 
 about him a number of students whom he fami- 
 liarly instructed ; and, as time went, and power 
 was given to the Church, this School for eccle- 
 siastical learning was placed under the roof of 
 the Bishop. In Rome especially, where we 
 look for the pattern to which other churches 
 are to be conformed, the clergy, not of the city 
 only, but of the provinces, were brought under 
 
l'ecole des hatjtes etudes. 363 
 
 the immediate eye of the Pope. The Lateran 
 Church, his first Cathedral, had a Seminary at- 
 tached to it, which remained there till the ponti- 
 ficate of Leo the Tenth, when it was transferred 
 into the heart of the city. The students en- 
 tered within its walls from the earliest child- 
 hood; but they were not raised from minor 
 orders till the age of twenty, nor did they reach 
 the priesthood till after the trial of many 
 years. Strict as a monastic noviciate, it never- 
 theless included polite literature in its course; 
 and a library was attached to it for the use 
 of the seminarists. Here was educated in the 
 time of Celestine, St. Eusebius, afterwards the 
 celebrated Bishop of Vercellse ; and in the dark 
 age which followed, it was the home from child- 
 hood of some of the greatest Popes, St. Gre- 
 gory the Second, St. Paul the First, St. Leo 
 the Third, St. Paschal, and St. Nicholas the 
 First. This venerable Seminary, called an- 
 ciently the School of the Pontifical Palace, 
 has never failed. Even when the barbarians 
 were wasting the face of Italy, and des- 
 troying its accumulations of literature, the 
 great Council of Rome, under Pope Agatho, 
 as I mentioned above, could testify, not indeed 
 
364 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 to the theological science of the school in that 
 miserable age, but to its faithful preservation of 
 the unbroken teaching of revealed truth and of 
 the traditions of the Fathers. In the thirteenth 
 century, we find it in a flourishing condition, 
 and St. Thomas and Albertus Magnus lecturing 
 in its halls. 
 
 Such a prerogative of perpetuity was not 
 enjoyed elsewhere. Europe lay submerged 
 under the waters of a deluge ; and, when they 
 receded, schools had to be refounded as well as 
 churches. One of the principal results of Char- 
 lemagne's visit to Rome, was the reform or 
 revival of education, both secular and ecclesias- 
 tical ; and on his return to the north he addressed 
 his well known letter on the subject to the 
 chapters and monastic bodies through his 
 Empire. Henceforth the Pope made Semi- 
 naries obligatory in every Diocese: as to the 
 laity, they attended the public Schools spoken 
 of in a former chapter. 
 
 Seminaries then were long in possession 
 before Universities were imagined; and Uni- 
 versities rose out of them. And, when Univer- 
 sities were established, in order to preserve the 
 equilibrium between clerical and lay education, 
 
LECOIE DES HAUTES ETUDES. 365 
 
 it was decreed, by the authority of the Canons, 
 that secular learning should be studied in the 
 Seminaries, and that each Cathedral should 
 maintain masters for its teaching. It was fore- 
 seen that, unless this was done, Universities 
 would supply a higher and a wider education 
 than the Episcopal Schools ; and that the clergy 
 would either become inferior to the monks and 
 the laity, or would be drawn within the pre- 
 cincts and influence of Universities. 
 
 The latter of these inconveniences took place. 
 The lectures in the Universities, after all, were 
 necessarily superior to those which a Seminary 
 could furnish. Accordingly, Colleges for eccle- 
 siastical students were founded in their neigh- 
 bourhood, and the Cathedral Schools fell in 
 reputation, and were gradually deserted. The 
 youths, who would have found their natural 
 home there, sometimes entered the Colleges 
 aforesaid, sometimes attended the schools of the 
 Regulars, sometimes lived in lodgings as other 
 students. It is sufficient to refer to the Lives of 
 the Medieval Saints for instances of ordination 
 taking place from or at the Universities without 
 Seminary training ; take, for example, St. Ray- 
 mund, St. John of Matha, St. Thomas of Can- 
 
366 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 terbury, St. Edward, St. John Nepomucene, St. 
 Caietan, St. Carlo, St. Ignatius and his com- 
 panions, or St. Francis of Sales, — men, who 
 lived in very various ages and countries, and 
 some of whom had to repel the shameless 
 assaults, to which their defenceless condition, in 
 the midst of great cities, exposed them. And 
 thus it was, that by the date of the Council 
 of Trent, Seminaries had all but ceased to exist ; 
 and the candidates for the Priesthood, who had 
 any learning and any religious training, either 
 gained it for themselves, as they could, amid 
 the mixed concourse of a University, or as 
 members of Colleges, which had themselves 
 suffered materially in their discipline from Uni- 
 versity contact. 
 
 There would be danger to their faith and reli- 
 gious temper, as well as to their morals. In 
 Universities, subjects of every sort were disputed 
 publicly; and boys, who ought to have been 
 schooled at a Seminary in distrust of the intel- 
 lect and modesty of speculation, were suffered 
 to imbibe a critical, carping, curious spirit, most 
 unbecoming in an ecclesiastic, on the inter- 
 pretation of difficulties of Scripture, or on the 
 deepest questions of theology. And the state of 
 
l'ecole des hatjtes exudes. 367 
 
 things became still more grave, when Protes- 
 tantism arose, and its adherents found means of in- 
 troducing themselves into the Professorial chairs. 
 
 It must be recollected too, that none but the 
 more able, or more wealthy, or more pushing, 
 would succeed in paying their way at a Univer- 
 sity. But the majority of ecclesiastics would 
 be poor, and without any great energy or enter- 
 prise. These, in the decay of Seminaries, were 
 thrown for education upon the parish schools, 
 which were obviously unequal to the task. 
 
 Such was the state of things, to which the 
 Council of Trent put an end. Episcopal Semi- 
 naries were restored; ecclesiastical Colleges in 
 Universities suppressed; the profounder studies 
 were to be taught under the Bishop's eye : but, 
 to make the observance of this rule easier, it 
 was provided that poorer Dioceses might unite 
 to establish a Provincial Seminary, where the 
 students of each would be all educated together. 
 Such, I suppose, in its ecclesiastical position is 
 the College of Maynooth ; and it is able in con- 
 sequence to present a staff of Professors, and 
 it exhibits an amount and quality of learning 
 and talent, which invest it almost with a Uni- 
 versity character. 
 
368 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 A further step in the same direction has been 
 taken by the present Pope. Without interfering 
 with the constitution of the Seminaries of his 
 States, he has founded at Rome, at considerable 
 expense, the Seminario Pio, which is to be 
 filled with young ecclesiastics, taken from all 
 dioceses, selected from the whole number on 
 the principle of merit. Their course lasts for 
 nine years, and embraces philosophy, scholastic 
 theology, holy Scripture, the Fathers, canon law, 
 rites, and ecclesiastical history. It has Pro- 
 fessorial Chairs, and the power of granting 
 degrees in Theology and Canon Law : it is in 
 fact an ecclesiastical University^ 
 
 It cannot be denied, that, while Seminaries 
 have been fostered and advanced during these 
 last centuries, Universities have been out of 
 favour. Two only were founded, as it would 
 appear, in the sixteenth century, and these were 
 expressly intended to counteract the spread of 
 Protestantism. The last great Medieval Uni- 
 versity was the famous foundation, or foun- 
 dations, at Alcala, due to the munificence of 
 Cardinal Ximenes, in the year 1500. Since 
 that date, it has been usual rather to bestow on 
 Collegiate institutions the privileges of Univer- 
 
l'ecole des hautes etudes. 369 
 
 sities, or in other words to erect a University 
 in a College, than to adhere to the medieval 
 type. Such appears to be the nature of the 
 University, which, with the recognition of the 
 British Government, has lately been founded at 
 Quebec. To the same distinction another Col- 
 lege seems tending, unless civil obstacles hinder 
 it, which to us is of especial interest, for the sake 
 of the prelate who founded it, from its progress 
 hitherto, and because its Superior is an Irish- 
 man: I mean L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes at 
 Paris. But, above all, it will have a definite 
 place, if it proceeds, as it promises to do, in the 
 history of Universities, and for that reason de- 
 serves some distinct mention here. 
 
 It was commenced by the immediate prede- 
 cessor of the present Archbishop of Paris, a 
 prelate of glorious memory; whose blood, 
 offered in behalf of his flock, seems already to 
 have borne those fruits, which are the usual 
 result of suffering in the cause of religion, and 
 to have called down from Heaven upon his 
 flock the blessings which he so ardently desired 
 for them. As one of his scholars in the seat 
 of learning which he has founded, expresses it, 
 
 24 
 
370 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 Audiit, et, miseratus oves, per prselia promptus, 
 Perdue neces varias fertur, pia victima, pastor. 
 Heu scelus infandum ! ruptse dum foedera pacis 
 Nectere, et insanos tentas cohibere furores, 
 Occidis, ao moriens extrema voce " Beatos, 
 Si nostra", exclamas, " cessaret sanguine sanguis". 
 
 Nor has the Archbishop's been the only blood 
 by which his Institution has been sanctified, nor 
 is that Institution the only school of devotion 
 and science, which has occupied the spot on 
 which it is placed. That spot was long ago, for 
 centuries, the home of theologians, and it has 
 become in the generation before us the scene and 
 the monument of Martyrs. It is no other than 
 the famous Cannes, where, on the terrible out- 
 burst of the Revolution, in 1792, so many 
 Bishops and Priests of France were mas- 
 sacred. 
 
 This of course is not the occasion for enu- 
 merating the noble foundations which of old 
 time were brought under the shadow of the 
 great University of Paris, the first school of 
 the Church. I have alluded to the subject in 
 a former chapter. Nations, provinces, monastic 
 bodies, had their several houses there, and royal 
 personages and wealthy ecclesiastics rejoiced 
 to leave endowments there for the benefit of 
 
l'ecole des hatjtes etudes. 371 
 
 religion and learning. The southern and more 
 healthy bank of the river was allotted to it, 
 and its manifold establishments gathered round 
 the hill of St. Genevieve. The Carmelites 
 were originally at an inconvenient distance from 
 the Saint, till Philip the Fair, King of France, 
 gave them ground at the foot of her hill, suffi- 
 cient for a Church and Monastery. This was 
 about the year 1300; and for the last two 
 centuries before the dreadful events, to which I 
 have referred, it is described, in particular, as 
 having been one of the most peaceable asylums 
 of science and faith. When the Revolution 
 came, and the clergy, hindered, by their duty 
 to the Church, from taking the oaths which 
 were presented for their acceptance, were sub- 
 jected to an imprisonment which was to end in 
 death, the Carmelite Convent was one of the 
 buildings selected for their confinement. Here, 
 or rather in the small church attached to the 
 Convent, in the month of August, 1792, were 
 crowded, first 120, and at length as many as 175 
 or 200, according to various accounts, of all 
 ranks and ages of the clergy. 
 
 The first prisoners seem to have been the 
 secular clergy of the city ; to these were added 
 
372 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 a number of superannuated priests, who lived on 
 pensions, and then a number of youthful semi- 
 narists. Besides these, were three Bishops, 
 various Professors and Preachers, and the heads 
 of certain religious congregations and collegiate 
 bodies. The second of September was the day 
 of their memorable conflict with the powers of 
 evil, then for a brief season in the ascendant. 
 On that day were imprisoned together in the 
 house and- garden of the Carmes (besides the 
 Seculars), Benedictines, Capuchins, Cordeliers, 
 Sulpicians, disbanded Jesuits, members of the 
 Sorbonne, and of the College of Navarre. The 
 revolutionary tribunal held its sitting in one of 
 the rooms of the Convent, and pronounced 
 them guilty of disloyalty to France ; and then 
 the revolutionary soldiers impatiently burst in 
 upon the prisoners to carry its sentence into 
 execution. The massacre lasted for three hours ; 
 eighty priests were slaughtered in the garden ; 
 the walls of the orangery at its end, now a 
 chapel, are still stained, or rather daubed over, 
 with their blood. On about a hundred others 
 the outward door of the Convent was opened 
 for their passage into the street; they were 
 called forward one by one ; the assassins stood 
 
LECOLE DES HATJTES ETUDES. 373 
 
 in double file, and, as their victims ran the 
 gauntlet between them, above sixty perished 
 under their blows, thirty-six or thirty-eight 
 escaping into the city. These noble soldiers of 
 the Church waited for their turn, and went to 
 death and died, with their office books in their 
 hands, and its psalms and prayers upon their 
 tongues. 
 
 To have lived in Paris then, and to have 
 heard the report, and seen the tokens, of what 
 was going on, was to have had some share in 
 her agony, who of old time looked upon One 
 uplifted on the Cross ; yet, bitter as the sorrow 
 must have been, surely it was lighter after all, 
 than that which has oppressed the Catholic 
 heart at other miserable seasons. It was surely 
 lighter than that which overspread Christendom 
 at the time when religion was overthrown in 
 England, while, for a long course of years, for 
 the greater part of' a century, some fresh deed 
 of sacrilege was perpetrated day by day, and 
 a false-hearted clergy and a cowardly laity al- 
 lowed the monarch and his nobles in their 
 deeds of violence and avarice. For the death of 
 traitors makes no sign, and whispers scarce a 
 hope of a revival ; but a martyrdom is a victory, 
 
374 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 and a Church, which falls from an external 
 blow, rises again by its inward vigour. This is 
 fulfilled before our eyes in the instance of 
 France, and of that memorable spot of which I 
 have been speaking. Good reason why the late 
 Archbishop should have placed his new institu- 
 tion in that sanctuary of martyrs, himself des- 
 tined so soon afterwards to be gathered to their 
 company. 
 
 Institutions, which are to thrive and last, 
 generally have humble beginnings, sometimes a 
 scope narrower than that which they eventually 
 profess; as there has been enough to suggest, 
 even in the sketches which have been set before 
 the reader in these pages. So has it been, so is 
 it still perhaps, in the case of the school now 
 under consideration. Its first object, when it 
 opened in 1845, was one indeed of high impor- 
 tance in itself, being no less than that of providing 
 Professors for the petits seminaires of France. 
 However, it is also described as " a noviciate of 
 ecclesiastics intended for teachers of the young 
 clergy", which is something of an advance in dig- 
 nity and moment upon the object as originally 
 conceived. When the title was given, by 
 which the school is designated, does not appear ; 
 
x'ecole des hatjtes etudes. 375 
 
 but an " Ecole des Hautes Etudes", also pro- 
 mises, or presaged, more than the first profession 
 of its founder. It speaks of high studies, and 
 studies for their own sake, which hardly is equi- 
 valent to a school for schoolmasters. Perhaps 
 it was discovered, as soon as attention was 
 directed to the subject, that, in order to teach 
 well, more must be learned by the teacher than 
 he has formally to impart to the pupil ; that he 
 must be above his work, and know, and know 
 accurately and philosophically, what he does 
 not actually profess. Accordingly, we find the 
 students are instructed, not only in the lan- 
 guages, but in the literatures, of Greece, Rome, 
 and France ; in general history ; and in philo- 
 sophy, and in the bearings of religion upon it, — 
 in which probably are included the study of the 
 Evidences of Christianity, of the objections 
 made to it and their refutation. Nor is the 
 direct cultivation of their minds forgotten ; the 
 perfection of our intellectual nature seems to be 
 judgment; and what judgment is in the conduct 
 of life, such is taste in our social intercourse, 
 in literature, and the fine arts. Now we are 
 told that it is provided, with a largeness of 
 view which does honour to the projectors of the 
 
376 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 Institution, that these ecclesiastical students 
 should be made acquainted with the ideas and 
 sentiments, the tone of mind, and character of 
 thought, and method of expression, which 
 distinguish the great writers both of ancient 
 and modern times; in order that, while they 
 exercise themselves in composition, they may 
 have a really good standard to work by, and 
 may learn even unconsciously to imitate what 
 has become familiar to them by frequent 
 perusal. 
 
 Nor is this the limit of their studies; the 
 present Archbishop has added mathematics, 
 physics, and geology. Little is evidently now 
 wanting to complete a University course ; and 
 accordingly we find they have been led for some 
 time to present themselves for the formal exami- 
 nations which are the condition of an academical 
 degree. Two years ago they numbered as many 
 as thirty-two licentiates in arts; and the doc- 
 torate, which is preceded by the study of the 
 Fathers and ecclesiastical history, had then been 
 attained by three. Meanwhile the Synod of 
 Paris has made the Institution the metropolitan 
 school of the province. Moreover, an asso- 
 
 :*, 
 
l'ecole des hautes etudes. 377 
 
 ciation has been formed for founding burses in 
 favour of poorer students, to which the ladies of 
 the higher classes and the cures of Paris are 
 liberally contributing. 
 
 The Institution would have no pretension 
 to the historical name of " University", while it 
 was confined to ecclesiastics; and the present 
 Archbishop, pursuing the process of develop- 
 ment, which had been so rapid in its movements 
 before him, has opened it to the laity. The 
 two descriptions of students are kept distinct, 
 except at lecture, examinations, and literary 
 meetings. The lay youths are received, as it 
 would appear, after the age of eighteen, and 
 are educated for the Professions, while they gain 
 of course the benefit of being imbued with 
 sound principles of religion. Literature and 
 mathematics form their principal studies; they 
 are practised, moreover, as well as the eccle- 
 siastics, in logical accuracy of thought, in elocu- 
 tion and composition. Many of these youths 
 pass on to the Ecole Poly technique, or other 
 government schools; or even belong to them, 
 while they attend lectures at the Carmes. 
 
 The cause of truth, never dominant in this 
 
378 UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES. 
 
 world, has its ebbs and flows. It is 'pleasant to 
 live in a day, when the tide is coming in. 
 Such is our own day ; and, without forgetting 
 that there are many rocks on the shore to throw 
 us back and break our advance for the moment, 
 and to task our patience before we cover them, — 
 that physical force is ever on the world's side, 
 and that the world will be provoked to more 
 active enmity against the Church in proportion 
 to her success, — still we may surely encourage 
 ourselves by a thousand tokens all around us 
 now, that this is our hour, whatever be its 
 duration, the hour for great hopes, great 
 schemes, great efforts, great beginnings. We 
 may live indeed to see but little built, but 
 we shall see much founded. A new era 
 seems to be at hand, and a bolder policy is 
 showing itself. In particular, the Church feels 
 herself strong enough in the provisions and 
 safeguards which a painful experience has sug- 
 gested against prospective dangers, to recom- 
 mence the age of Universities. Louvain re- 
 vived twenty years ago ; a new University of 
 Paris seems to be in prospect, or at least in 
 hope; the report is current that a University 
 
l'ecole des hautes etudes. 379 
 
 is sopn to be erected in Austria; and the 
 University of Ireland is proving its possibility 
 by entering on its work, and presaging its fu- 
 ture prosperity by its triumph over the diffi- 
 culties of its commencement. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 It has been thought right to append to the foregoing 
 Essays the present official Staff of the new Irish Uni- 
 versity, in whose behalf they were written and are now 
 republished. 
 
 $]Uttmr. 
 Very Rev. J. H. Newman, D.D. 
 
 Very Rev. P. Leahy, D.D. 
 
 professors, tic. 
 Sacred Scripture — Very Rev. P. Leahy, D.D. 
 Dogmatic Theology— Very Rev. Fr. O'Reilly, D.D., S.J. 
 Canon Law — Very Rev. Laurence Forde, D.D. 
 
 Theory and Practice of Surgery — Andrew Ellis, 
 F.R.O.S.I., Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. 
 
 Anatomy and Physiology — Thos. Hayden, F.R.C.S.I. ; 
 and Robert Cryan, L.R.C.S.I., and K. and Q.O.P.I. 
 
 Practice of Medicine and Pathology — Robert D. Lyons, 
 M.B.T.C.D., and L.R.C.S. 
 
382 APPENDIX. 
 
 Medical Chemistry — W. K. Sullivan, D. Ph. 
 Materia Medica — Eobert MacDermott, A.B., M.B., 
 
 Trin. Coll. Dub., M.R.I.A. 
 Medical Jurisprudence — S. M. MacSwiney, M.D. ; 
 
 L. Dub. Col. Phys.; M.R.C.S.E. 
 Demonstrators of Anatomy — Henry Tyrrell, L.R.C.S.I., 
 
 John O'Reilly, L.R.C.S.I., and Francis Quinlan, 
 
 L.R.C.S.I. 
 
 Greek and Latin Literature — Robert Ornsby, M.A., 
 Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. 
 
 Greek and Latin Languages — James Stewart, M.A. 
 
 Poetry and English Literature — D. F. M'Carthy. 
 
 Irish Archaeology — Eugene Curry, M.R.I.A. 
 
 Italian and Spanish Languages — Signor Marani. 
 
 French and German Languages — M. 1' Abbe 1 Schiirr. 
 
 Ancient History and Geography — Peter le Page 
 Renouf. 
 
 Modern History and Geography — J. B. Robertson. 
 
 Philosophy of History — T. W. Allies, M.A. 
 
 Political and Social Science — Aubrey De Vere. 
 
 Political Economy — John O'Hagan, B.A. 
 
 Geometry and Elementary Mathematics — Edward But- 
 ler, M.A. 
 
 Logic— D. B. Dunne, D.D., D. Ph. 
 
 Fine Arts— -J. H. Pollen, M.A. 
 
 Catechist in Creed and Scripture — Rev. W. G. Penny, 
 M.A. 
 
APPENDIX. 383 
 
 Natural Philosophy — Henry Hennessy, M.R.I. A., Dean 
 
 of the Faculty of Science. 
 Physiology — Robert D. Lyons, M.B.T.C.D., and 
 
 L.R.C.S. 
 Science of Mathematics — Edward Butler, M.A. 
 Engineering — Terence Flanagan, M.I.C.E. 
 
 Smtfarg. 
 Thomas Scratton, B.A. 
 
 (fjEHttttttttS. 
 
 Rev. Father M. O'Ferrall, S.J. 
 
 Rev. W. G. Penny, M.A. 
 
 Myles W. O'Reilly, D.Ph. of Knock Abbey, Dundalk. 
 
 Edward Watford, M.A. 
 
 Morgan W. Crofton, M.A., late Professor of Natural 
 
 Philosophy, Queen's College, Galway. 
 Robert MacDermott, M.B. 
 W. H. Scott, M.A. 
 
 gbatt of % UrcHrraitg Cfnach. 
 Very Rev. the Rector. 
 
 Chaplains. 
 
 Rev. James Quinn, D.D. 
 Rev. Matthew Quinn, D.D. 
 Rev. Hugh Macmanus, D.D. 
 
384 APPENDIX. 
 
 Kev. Thomas Doyle. 
 Rev. Robert Dunne. 
 
 Right Rev. Dr. Moriarty. 
 Right Rev. Dr. Leahy. 
 
 Very Rev. the Rector. 
 
 Very Rev. the Vice-Rector. 
 
 Very Rev. Dr. Cussen, V.G., Limerick. 
 
 Very Rev. M. Flannery, V.G., Dean of St. Patrick's House. 
 
 Very Rev. D. Murphy, V.G., Cork. 
 
 Very Rev. Father Russell, O.P. 
 
 Rev. Dr. O'Brien, All Hallows. 
 
 Rev. Father Gaffney, S.J. 
 
 *Rev. Father Rorke, S.J. 
 
 Rev. W. Anderdon, M.A. 
 
 Rev. D. Kane, Carlow College. 
 
 $P«rcs ano fetors nf Prases. 
 St. Patricks House — Dean, Very Rev. M. Flannery, V.G.; 
 
 Tutor, D. B. Dunne, Esq., D.D. 
 St. Mary's House (Rector's) — Dean, Rev. W. G. 
 Penny, M.A. ; 
 Tutor, P. Renouf, Esq. 
 St. Laurence's House — Dean, Rev. James Quinn, D.D. 
 Carmelite House — Dean, Very Rev. Father Bennett, , 
 O.C.C., Provincial. 
 
 John F. Fowler, Printer, 3 Crow Street, Dame Street, Dublin.